The Light in the Dark
by Ayla Valentine
Summary: A tale of D after he met Doris and before the 2cd movie, when he encounters a young girl he'll never forget.
1. Prologue

The Light in the Dark  
  
Prologue  
  
  
  
Evening was approaching the town in the valley. With great mountains off in the distance and a safe place to call home, this still didn't leave everyone at peace. The countryside was lush despite the usual run-down-of-a- shack house. But in the heart of the valley was the town of Astonite. With it's lights on at night it was always bright enough for one to find their way.  
  
Though some doors on the houses were locked and the windows shut, some of the town refused to give in to the night and its inhabitants and opened their doors to tourists and anyone passing by. The town bustled with people here and there and the streetlights as bright as can be. Soon the night would come.  
  
  
  
_______________________________________________________________________  
  
  
  
"Thank God fer Faterday!"  
  
"It's Saturday you food-obsessed idiot, and it's Thank God for Friday!"  
  
"Shame ting."  
  
The drunkard lifted his mug for cheers and more beer while his companion grumbled with his head in his hands. The bar was actually a lively place despite the small population of the town. Every seat at the counter was taken and the bar tender was hurriedly getting orders and accepting tips. One man sat at the back of the room at a booth looking out the window. No one paid any mind to him.  
  
"Well I just heard that farmer McHoland hired a crew of Werewolf Hunters who killed eight werewolves so far!" said the bartender.  
  
"No kidding!? I'll drink to that!" one man said sitting at one of the tables next to the counter.  
  
"Yeah," another man spoke up, "but with these werewolves dead that means less attacks on the outskirts of the village, and when the Vampires find out."  
  
"Who cares! I'm sick and tired of worrying. When the Vamps find out, we'll just hire a crew of Vampire Hunters!"  
  
All the men agreed to that with cheer and another chug of beer. The man sitting in the back of the room just continued looking out the window. With an inward sigh he slouched down and propped his feet up on the table, pulling his traveler hat just a little lower to shadow his face. The aloof figure soon caught the attention of one of the men sitting at a table.  
  
"And what about you Stranger? Can I get ya a drink?"  
  
D turned his head. "No thank you."  
  
The other mans eyes wandered, taking in D's attire and the long weapon leaned against the wooden frame of the booth.  
  
"So you're a Hunter, eh?"  
  
And with a faint nod, D spoke, "That's right."  
  
Surprisingly that was all that was spoken and honestly, D was waiting for the man to continue with his curiosity. The other men mingled on into the heavy hours of the night until the bar was more than half-empty. Soon, even the men at the counter had to return home, talking of how their wives would beat them with a stick if they came home any later.  
  
"You're a Vampire Hunter, aren't you?" the bartender said, wiping out the inside of a mug with a cloth. His words were the only words that filled the bar now that his costumers had all gone home. Only two other men remained besides D and the bar tender and they were off in a corner talking in whispers.  
  
D nodded.  
  
The bar tender acknowledged that and looked down at his glass. He offered the man any drink, and even though it was on the house, D refused any.  
  
"You're not from around these parts are you?"  
  
The glass was starting to squeak under the cloth. He put the mug back up on the display rack behind him and leaned forward with his elbows on the counter.  
  
"No. what Vampires live here?"  
  
"Ooh." the bartender chuckled good-naturedly. "No one can really say for certain, but we know their there. Their creatures of the night attack our people and sometimes, not often, we find their victims. But we know their there."  
  
D looked outside the window as his eyes fell on the crosses mounted upon everyone's rooftop.  
  
The bar tender continued, "Some think it's the Countess Lily. I've heard tales of men who've ventured south of here into the deepest parts of the forest and sighted a castle. Tell me, why does it interest you?"  
  
D remained silent.  
  
"Ah, I see.  
  
Well, I wish you the best of luck. If you're in any need of hospitality I can offer you a bed for the night and my wife cooks a great breakfast."  
  
________________________________________________________  
  
"Right this way." The bar tender walked down a hallway which was conveniently right above the bar. The wooden hallway creaked beneath their feet and to the left was two doors and to the right, one. They both stopped at the end of the hallway as the bar tender had his back to D and the sound of a key jangling was heard. The man opened the door for D.  
  
"It's a little bit dusty, but not to bad." He said while trying to stifle a cough. D stepped inside and replayed a thank you.  
  
"And if you need anything, my name's Bill." He smiled and nodded, then shut the door.  
  
  
  
D looked around his surroundings with a calm look before setting his hat on a dresser and leaning his sword against the wall. He walked over to the other side of the room and looked out the window.  
  
  
  
"Well, well, isn't this entertaining. Everyone just seems to open up to you, and they have no idea what you are!"  
  
D didn't say anything.  
  
"Really D, you should feel special. You barely have enough money to pay for a hotel room and you always manage to get around quiet nicely."  
  
"Hush."  
  
The irritating voice chuckled. "What? You are special you know. Not every man gets the honor of arguing with his hand!"  
  
D gave a sigh before finally stretching and lying down on the bed. His cloak was a good enough blanket for him. Giving in to the human half of him, he fell asleep.  
  
  
  
_________________________________________________  
  
  
  
Sunlight soon crept in from the window and through the curtains to reveal a very interesting site. The door was open and a little girl about five or six was sitting in a chair staring at D.  
  
The man sat up and calmly looked at the little girl, he didn't want to frighten her. Scaring Vampires was okay but only children screamed.  
  
"And who might you be?" D asked in a polite voice.  
  
"I'm Tressa. Are you dead?"  
  
D shook his head no. The little girl just sat in her seat swinging her feet wildly and twisting some of her blonde hair. "My mom sent me up here, she says if you want any breakfast you should go downstairs before it gets cold."  
  
The man stood up and reached for his hat and sword before following Tressa and heading downstairs. He towered over the child and D ignored her warning of 'your head might hit the ceiling'.  
  
As soon as he arrived downstairs and into the bar/living room or whatever it was to the inhabitants, Tressa took her spot at the counter as a lady in an apron came out from a swooshing wooden door. She set a plate in front of her daughter and looked up at the mysterious man. "What'll you have?"  
  
"I'm fine, miss."  
  
She gave him a quizzical look but really didn't want to insist against his will. he definitely looked like someone you didn't want to piss off.  
  
Just then Bill came down the stairs rubbing his hand against his freshly shaven chin. "Ah, I see you've met my Tressa!"  
  
D gave a single nod.  
  
"So, where ya headin'?" He asked, acknowledging D had all of his 'supplies' together.  
  
"South."  
  
Bill laughed. "You can't be serious.. Well, makes perfect sense. If you need a good steed, I can give you-"  
  
D shook his head without an answer. An electronic snort and stomping of a hoof was heard outside.  
  
"Well then." said Bill. "Best of luck to you, since you're leaving so early. It only gets worse as you head South, but be careful along your way on the outskirts."  
  
"I will." D nodded and started heading for the door. "Thank you."  
  
Bill and his wife just exchanged each other looks.  
  
  
  
  
  
Around mid-day he was stocking up for a few supplies and figured his sword needed a good polish. He stayed around the village and the shops, almost all day before deciding to head out now.  
  
He rode through the cobbled streets of the village before finally reaching the end and headed out into the countryside.  
  
He rode through pastures and fields, passing ranches and farms and basically any small house that dotted the countryside. The outskirts stretched on for miles and by now he had slown his horse down to a steady pace. The sun was setting and evening once more was approaching. D noted that there were no Inns or hotels around for him to stay, so he would have to keep riding all night, to unsafe to rest.  
  
He trotted down a lonely gravel road for a while. The sky was orange along the horizon with a purple atmosphere. A few houses along the way were illuminating a warm glow from their windows till the houses seemed farther and farther apart.  
  
He continued down the road as the sun was setting more and more and was about to pass what he thought would be the last house for miles until an elderly lady came rushing up to him.  
  
Eucalyptus trees were lined up along the road and the land was mostly wheat fields and grass for livestock. The two story house that the woman came out of looked larger compared to the other houses but no more richer. The man stopped his robotic horse as the woman caught up to him.  
  
"Sir, if you need a place to stay you're welcomed to stay here!" 


	2. Chapter 1: Araydia

Chapter One:  
  
Araydia  
  
  
  
  
  
With his cyborg horse in the stables and a cozy place to stay with a hot meal, one might be satisfied. The elderly woman had ran up to him and insisted that he stay there for the night. She took him by the arm and led him inside before leading his horse off to a stable.  
  
D soon learned that this woman was a grandmother and was living on the dangerous outskirts with her middle-aged daughter and young grand daughter. They didn't even have a barrier to protect them. 'Granny', as she insists to be called, was in the kitchen making tea while D sat in the den on a couch. Across from him was Granny's daughter, Kessie.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a cozy atmosphere, in some upstairs room. With one window to the right draped by white curtains- glowing yellow due to the dull lamp and light shade- a brown carpet, wooden coffee table and such, it seemed like a style the Vampire hunter was so use too. A few things were cluttered about on the shelves and such.  
  
Granny made her way into the den and set the kettle on the table, under a kitchen cloth.  
  
"Talk spread fast through-out the whole village that the local bartender harbored a Vampire hunter!" The elderly woman spoke. Her white hair in short curls and her apron fastened around her plump body. Kessie picked up a teacup and saucer and sipped some tea.  
  
"Mom heard you were heading south, she's eager to open up her hospitality to any passing stranger." Kessie set her cup down. "And I'm afraid one day it won't be for her good."  
  
D hadn't spoken much at all most of the evening. The chirping of crickets outside could be heard even into the little room. He crossed one leg over the other and politely listened to what they had to say, without saying a word.  
  
"And sometimes we don't know what to do." Kessie continued on. She tightened her knitted shawl around her shoulders and folded down her dress. "We can't afford a barrier and lately we've been loosing a lot of cattle due to the Werewolves!"  
  
"Oh Kess, calm down." Granny said while turning her attention to the Vampire hunter. "It's just me and my Kess, and our dear Ray."  
  
"Who'll never marry." Grumbled Kessie.  
  
"Where is that child anyway? She's been stuck in her room all night---RAY!"  
  
A soft thudding of footsteps came down the hallway, but stopped to go into another room where racket was heard.  
  
D remained silent and stoic as ever. Kessie picked up her teacup again. "She'll soon be eighteen and she's still as stubborn as ever!"  
  
"Runs in the family."  
  
"She refuses to get married, even for the welfare of the farm! I'd ride her into town and leave her there if I could but she'd follow me home! She'll never leave this farm!"  
  
"WHAT?!" A girl poked her head out from the corner of the wall and peered into the den at Kessie. Her hair was midnight black and pulled back into a messy bun, with two pieces of bangs sticking to the side of her face and getting in the way. She blew them away and soon her attention shifted around the room when she caught the one thing that wasn't suppose to be there.  
  
"Huh?" she replied in a softer tone.  
  
The girl glared at D with piercing blue eyes, glittering under the light. "If this is another man you're bringing home for me Aunt Kess, you can send him back right about. now." The girls head turned from their view and disappeared back into the hallway.  
  
"That's our Araydia." Kessie sighed.  
  
"RAY! Get back in here!" Granny demanded.  
  
Araydia stomped back into the room and faced them with her arms crossed. She was bare footed and had on a khaki colored dress, which hung loosely on her body, reaching down to her knees. Her dress had no pockets and a lot of patches. Your typical farm girl.  
  
Granny spoke, "Ray, why don't you get us more tea and maybe fix the hunter a meal?"  
  
Before D could say he wasn't hungry, Araydia's voice interrupted him.  
  
"Hunter?!" She turned to D. "YOU'RE the guy all the fuss is about?" She burst into giggles. "I heard he was like seven feet tall, but not some scrawny guy in a sombrero!" Araydia continued with her giggles as her granny gave her the evil eye look.  
  
"I expected some big, buff guy with a lazer gun." She turned on her heel and left for the kitchen, still in her giggle fit.  
  
"Now you see my point." Kessie deadpanned, referring to why Araydia would never marry.  
  
  
  
A few minutes later the girl came back into the den carrying a tray. She set the tray down on the coffee table and poured Granny some tea. D didn't want any.  
  
"Welp," Granny said with a wheeze as her hunched frame stood up. "I'm heading off for bed ladies, goodnight."  
  
"Good night Granny," both Kessie and Araydia replied.  
  
With Granny now retiring to her room Araydia could say her snide remarks to D without harsh punishment. She took in his appearance. He was not at all like she had heard, and a bit tense with the fact of all the people Granny had to show her hospitality for, it had to be this one.  
  
Kessie fumbled under the quietness. "So where is it you're from D?" she asked.  
  
No reply.  
  
"Uhmm. Is it just you and your horse that travel?"  
  
Still no reply.  
  
"Uh, Kessie, I don't think our friend here speaks English."  
  
Kessie turned to Araydia with a lazy eye and the girl just snickered. "He does too, he told Granny he was heading south!"  
  
"You mean South to the border?"  
  
"Ray!"  
  
"Look at him! He's from Mexico! He's goin' back South to the border!"  
  
Her Aunt Kessie was turning red.  
  
"He wears a sombrero and one of those cheap cloaks they sell in Mexico! You don't think Choco and his Little Donkey have actually KILLED any Vamps do you!?"  
  
Kessie glared and slapped Araydia clear across her cheek. The girl turned red in shock and soon flushed with embarrassment.  
  
"I'll go to bed now."  
  
Aunt Kess nodded. Araydia stood up, not once glancing at D and disappeared around the corner. But the young girl just couldn't give in to the temptation in her mind. She poked her head around the corner;  
  
"And no speaka Es Spañol!" 


	3. Chapter 2: Southward

Chapter 2:  
  
1 Southward  
  
  
  
D slept well, if he could. Though not exactly being Human doesn't really intittle you to a decent amount of sleep without nightmares and remembrance from the past. It was his own little tradition most of the time to usually leave about sunrise. He was thankful for those who harbored him, but he never said goodbye. It would be best if they woke up and he was gone. No one had to worry about him, he felt it wasn't anyones burden but his own.  
  
It was still dark outside, the sun hadn't came up yet. D collected his things and put on his hat before heading downstairs. The rooms had a bluish morning tint to them, but it wasn't too dark. D could see in the dark perfectly anyway.  
  
He made his way down the stairs, across the living room, and was about to open the door to go get his horse from the stable when a raspy voice spoke up.  
  
"Leaving so soon?"  
  
D turned around to see Granny sitting on a sofa. One of their finer pieces of furniture, but not to well kept up. He was a bit surprised he didn't notice her. They had so many pieces of random junk collected throughout the years he could have easily passed the old woman as anything. He wasn't expecting anyone to be up.  
  
"You look surprised. You should know better not to think a farm doesn't get up this early," Granny chuckled to herself. "I have a favor to ask of you, and I believe you would be well suited for it."  
  
D listened, though he made no acknowledgment.  
  
"I'm very old and I've lived my life to my hearts content. My Kess is leaving the farm to start a life of her own with her fiancé and I'm afraid my Araydia hasn't got much of a choice on where she belongs."  
  
Granny averted her eyes back to D.  
  
"I'm listening." he replied.  
  
Granny cleared her throat, "I was saving up what little income we get to buy Ray a train ticket, but it seems much more convenient for her to have assistance. That of an adult who can keep her in line and that of a man who can protect her. Her Uncle and his family lives South, and since you're heading that way."  
  
"I'm afraid the road I take is not suitable for a girl-young woman-such as Ray. It's too risky, I'm sorry."  
  
Granny knew he was right. The girl would only get in his way and it was indeed dangerous, but the poor elderly woman was desperate!  
  
"Please Hunter! I can pay you! I know I can trust you, I feel it! With your assistance you can protect her! I needed a sign from the Lord, I couldn't give her away to any stranger, and you came trotting down our road! Please, it's not out of your way."  
  
The hunter hesitated.  
  
"Please. as an old woman's dying wish, just get her granddaughter safely home back to her family."  
  
Family. that word.  
  
"As you wish.." D replied.  
  
  
  
  
  
Rays of sunlight started to peak out from behind the mountains and through the valley. It was a bit of a cold morning and Araydia's breath was visible against the morning sky. The clouds were a soft pink and purple from the rays of the sun.  
  
The girl was outside, barefooted. She was wearing her plain khaki farm dress again, with her hair tossed up, not even brushed, and not fully awake. She scattered pieces of corn for the chickens, which were clucking and walked around her cold feet. It was a hard job, but she loved her farm. She loved the animals.  
  
"Ray!"  
  
Hearing her name, the girl looked up with her aware blue eyes, bangs once again loosely falling on her face. She blew them away. She would have shouted back at Granny, if that Hunter wasn't with her.  
  
'What does he want?' Ray thought.  
  
"Araydia, you foolish girl, go back inside and put some shoes on! You'll catch a cold!"  
  
No use in arguing. She could if she wanted, to make a bad impression on D, but she figured he was leaving today, so who cared.  
  
  
  
Araydia fumbled up the steps and into her bedroom. She threw on a pair of stockings and shoes before finding the mirror on her wall and inwardly screaming.  
  
She ripped the hair-tie out of her hair. Her messy, ebony locks fell to the middle of her back. Ray allowed herself to gawk on her own appearance for a bit and then finally run a comb through her hair.  
  
'Pfffft, it's not like there's anyone to impress anyway!'  
  
  
  
A knock came to her door and Granny stepped in.  
  
"Pack your things, you're heading to your Uncles."  
  
Araydia dropped her comb and stared at Granny. She had been through this talk before, if a better way of traveling presented itself before they could get a train ticket, Ray would leave that way, if she liked it or not. And she did NOT like it.  
  
"But Granny. I said I wanted to take the train! We just have to wait a little longer to get enough money, it's not so hard!"  
  
"Ray, just listen to your elders for once!" Granny was starting to raise her voice. Something Aunt Kessie had warned her not to make Granny do, she was getting too old to yell.  
  
"You know how expensive these things are costing more each day. Plus on top of that your food expenses, it's too costly for such a long trip. If you go with the Hunter you'll be getting to the same destination, and at sooner time! Ray, don't make this any harder on me."  
  
Ray felt like fussing and whining and crying till she got her way. Her pretty face was starting to become pouty and teary eyed.  
  
"Just put your hair back up and don't come down till you're ready."  
  
  
  
Ray finally came downstairs. She could only take what she really needed; clothes and whatever other necessary things she needed. She wished her bag were bigger so she could take her whole kitchen. She knew she would be hungry.  
  
The girl allowed a good amount of midnight bangs to flop in her face. She didn't want to look at D and she didn't want her Aunt and Grandma to know she had been crying. She didn't want possibly Granny's last image of her to be a crying one.  
  
Granny and Aunt Kessie exchanged their goodbyes with Araydia, and Aunt Kessie promised Ray she could count on her wealthy Uncle to send her up for a visit via train. To see her Aunt's new home, husband, and possibly their first child. But more important, Ray knew she would miss her farm most of all.  
  
  
  
D was outside, already mounted on his horse. The girl put her bag over and seemed a little timid to be riding a half-robotic horse. If everything was better, she would have commented on how it was the ugliest horse she had ever seen. Putting her foot in the smooth metal stirrup, she slipped and the horse snorted.  
  
"Ahh!"  
  
D looked at her and held out his hand.  
  
"I'm fine, I know how to get on a horse!" the girl replied. Araydia managed to get on and seemed a little lost at how she was suppose to hang on. She had never been the person not controlling the horse and she didn't want to have to put her arms around the Hunter to hang on.  
  
On realizing Granny and Aunt Kess were waving from the porch, Ray didn't want to make a fuss and slipped an arm around the man. She waved back.  
  
The cyborg horse started to trot back down the road. Ray looked up at the man. All she could see was his backside and long, wavy, chestnut brown hair down to the middle of his back.  
  
"Do you have a name? Or does everyone just call you Hunter?" she asked.  
  
"D. My name is D." 


	4. Chapter 3: Talking to Strangers

Chapter 3:  
  
Talking to Strangers  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
3 days later:  
  
They had done nothing but ride for the past two days. Araydia didn't have much to say in the way of things to talk about, but she sure had a lot to grumble about. All of the snacks Ray had packed had already ran out, and the girl had no money. She presumed Granny gave some money to D.  
  
'Figures she wouldn't trust me.what's she think I'm going to spend it on? The mall?' Ray snickered to herself.  
  
They were wandering through an open wheat field. The girl looked up at D.  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
D didn't say anything. From Ray's view, he didn't even turn his head.  
  
The girl sighed, shrugged her shoulders and slouched, making the ride even bumpier.  
  
  
  
  
  
_______________________________________  
  
  
  
  
  
Much to Araydia's luck, they reached a small village a little after sunset. Every time she heard wolves howl in the distance, she girl would jump and D would assure her that they weren't werewolves.  
  
The town was a well-kept village. With clean cobble stone streets, and black iron fences. A few people were out and about, walking around. And of course, the lights to the bars were always on and the doors always open. The hunter and Ray could hear hysterical laughing from inside.  
  
"Well, well, well." Rang a feminine voice.  
  
Both turned around to look at the source. By now the cyborg horse had stopped walking and allowed the figure to approach them.  
  
The woman had her wavy brown hair tucked in a bun and a very low-cut gown, showing a bit of cleavage. She appeared upper-classed.  
  
"So it's true. There is a man accompanied by a little girl heading South. My home is open for the night if you wish to stay."  
  
"Oh look D, a succubus, let's go away."  
  
The woman chuckled in amusement. "I assure you, I don't bite, little girl. My name is Lady Naomi."  
  
"My name isn't little girl."  
  
The woman giggled to herself.  
  
Naomi started walking to wherever and D steered the horse to follow.  
  
"D!? You're actually accepting her offer?!" the girl said in a harsh whisper tone.  
  
No reply.  
  
"I swear.. Men. 'forget the hotel, she has big breasts!' "  
  
D just turned his head, not looking at the girl, but she got the hint and shut up.  
  
Ray pouted and crosses her arms. "I hate you."  
  
  
  
__________________________________________  
  
  
  
Naomi's house was very pretty. It had a lovely white, plush carpet, polished wooden steps to an upstairs room, pretty furniture and various wealthy decorations throughout the house. It wasn't very big though.  
  
Araydia glanced around the house. She had never been in such an elegant house before and felt very displaced. The girl wondered what D was thinking, she figured he probably didn't care. Pretty woman must have always welcomed him into their house; he was probably use to all sorts of things.  
  
"Here, there should be a guestroom back here." The lovely woman mumbled to herself as she led Ray into that room. " 'D' can sleep on the couch."  
  
"Oh I don't think so," Araydia looked at her defiantly. "_He_ is sleeping in here, and I'm locking the door!"  
  
Naomi giggled. "You don't trust me, do you?"  
  
"No."  
  
The woman shook her head. "Come with me."  
  
___________________________________________  
  
D and Naomi sat in the living room. As usual, D was quiet and being asked the usual questions as Naomi was trying to get him to talk. He had a lovely, masculine, soft voice. The woman thought he was very handsome.  
  
"My husband was a hunter of the creatures of the night. He never touched Vampires through, he always stayed clear of them. But he was killed by a local Countess's mutant." She placed her hands elegantly in her lap.  
  
"I guess if you don't go looking for it, it goes looking for you," she mused, "I just can't turn my head when I hear all sorts of gossip about these hunters. I heard of one heading down South this way with a little girl, I thought it was unusual."  
  
Naomi was about to continue whatever else she thought was important that she might add, when D spoke up.  
  
"Her Grandmother asked me as a dying wish to take her granddaughter to her Uncle, her remaining family. It wasn't out of my way."  
  
"How intriguing."  
  
  
  
Araydia could hear all of this from Naomi's upstairs room. "Oh please. where's her turn off button?" the girl sarcastically mumbled to herself. The door was open a crack and Naomi shouted from downstairs;  
  
"Aradyia? You got that dress on?"  
  
Ray poked her head out the door. "I am NOT coming down."  
  
Before long, Ray could hear footsteps up the stairs and she retreated to the farthest corner of the room.  
  
Naomi walked in with a wide smile on her face, and a bit of a blush. "Why won't you come down Araydia, you look fine in that dress."  
  
"It's pink."  
  
Naomi chuckled. "Well then, I'll find you a more suitable color."  
  
The women handed her another gown and seemed amuse with herself. Mirrors accented almost every angle of Naomi's room, making the girl feel uncomfortable.  
  
"Now try this on and come downstairs. You can't go running around in that ugly farmer girl dress all the time, can you?!"  
  
Ray looked up apathetically and took the dress. "Fine."  
  
Naomi smiled, "Good," then she frowned. "You're not going to leave your messy hair up like that are you?"  
  
  
  
___________________________________________  
  
Araydia finally came downstairs. Naomi seemed to be having another conversation with D when the girl started thudding her way ungracefully down the steps.  
  
Who would have guessed the features that khaki, patched farm dress had hidden. Ray's gown was light blue, with a hint of ruffles, ribbons and lace. A lovely add to the girls piercing blue eyes. The dress fit tightly around her stomach, revealing her youthful curves and slightly large breasts.  
  
The girl had a lovely build in her arms and delicate hands, now that her round shoulders were visible and parts of her flesh exposed, she really did have womanly features.  
  
"Ray, it's a very beautiful dress, and you look stunning in it." Naomi smiled. Ray still kept a frown on her face. The woman couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy.  
  
D only gave a single nod, he simply refused himself to express anything more. He admired the way the gown brought out her lovely features, he never imagined a girl with such natural beauty as Ray could hide it so well. Now with locks of ebony tendrils falling down her back and over her shoulders, D had a slight vision of him brushing a few midnight locks behind her ear with his pale hand.  
  
The thought vanished with a harsh internal kick. 'She's so young.' 


	5. Chapter 4: Getting Nowhere

Chapter 4: Getting Nowhere  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
D slept on the couch, regarding Ray's comment of him sleeping in the room with the bed and locking the door to keep away Naomi. He was laying on his back, not exactly in a sleeping position. He was more of "resting", the only thing his body would let him do at the moment. Even if the Hunter tried, he wouldn't be able to get some sleep, not this night…  
  
"Another one of these nights, is it?"  
  
That cursed hand. Just when he was enjoying his own company he had to be reminded of the symbiot.  
  
The sym had kept quiet the past few days, it had no choice. Ray and other people were around, and the sym didn't talk in front of other people, only to D. The truth was, no matter how much the thing was a nuisance, D knew he couldn't 'live' without it. It kept him in line, even though it didn't bother on itself, it pulled him on, gave him advice, willing D chose to accept it or not. But what came with such help, came such annoyance.  
  
The thing cackled and spoke in a lower, matter-of-fact, tone. "There's no use fighting it, D. You don't think you can actually maintain a normal sleep cycle, like a human being?" The symbiot chuckled, seeming to find great amusement in reminding D of the part he'd rather forget. The part that needed the night.  
  
The man ignored the creature's usual babbling and rolled onto his side.  
  
The symbiot got this as a sign for it to stop talking, but it never took those signs seriously. "Oh? Giving me the cold shoulder?"  
  
"Why must you torment me now…"  
  
The creature smirked as D rustled about for a place to get comfortable. "I believe you may be turning out to be more human than I thought! I know perfectly well how you thought of Ray this evening, how very un-D like. Tsk, tsk. And she's only a little girl."  
  
D closed his hand before any more words could be said and he could hopefully get on with a decent nights rest. "You know perfectly well that's unacceptable. She's only a child and I have a job to carry out."  
  
"You know?" came a muffled voice, " There's something funny about that girl…something I can't quite place my finger on…ah! She does bare a striking resemblance to your moth—"  
  
"Enough." And with that, D rolled over. Closing the conversation for the night.  
  
  
  
_______________________________________  
  
  
  
  
  
The Hunter woke up when he felt a finger constantly jabbing into his shoulder. "D!" Came a harsh whisper.  
  
"D, wake up!"  
  
D turned his head to view the source and wasn't surprised to find Ray poking his shoulder.  
  
"Come on, let's get out of here before that Succubus wakes up and demands payments for her assistance! Let's go!"  
  
The man sat up. It wasn't even dawn yet. He didn't know what time he got to bed last night, but he knew he was still very tired. D quickly picked up his wide-brimmed hat off the arm of the couch and placed it on his head.  
  
Ray scampered off to her room. Happy she was getting her way. She still didn't trust the woman. She figured if they stuck around any longer, Naomi might offer to make them breakfast, poison her food and run away with D. All in all, she just wanted to get this whole trip over with as quickly as possible. She didn't like the idea of staying at whoever's house was available, the fact that werewolves or any Creature of the Night would possibly see them as a target or D's company.  
  
Lady Naomi had told the young girl the night before that she could keep the gown. Ray didn't want it, but Naomi insisted. The girl didn't know how uncomfortable it might be to ride on a horse with such an attire, and didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention.  
  
Too bad by the time Ray scampered out of her room, already changed quickly into the gown with her bag already packed, Lady Naomi was up.  
  
The girl huffed.  
  
"Well hello, miss Araydia."  
  
"Don't you still have some ugly sleep to catch up on?"  
  
Naomi chuckled, not at all amused. "Well I figured you would be more grateful to me than that." It was true. Ray's behavior was downright rude.  
  
Poor Ray. She wished she had an imaginary white flag to wave in defeat. Naomi turned to D who was standing by her with his arms crossed. He hadn't said a word since Araydia had came out. The woman was looking up at him as if she was expecting something. Ray raised an eyebrow, confused.  
  
"So what's your answer?"  
  
Ray spoke up, "Answer? Answer to what? What did you ask him?!"  
  
The woman giggled giddily and grinned at Ray. She was up to something. "Well if I could come with you, of course."  
  
The young girl's eyes widen. "I don't think so, lady!"  
  
"It's not your decision, it's D's!"  
  
"Well I'm speaking for him! You can't come with us, we're going to Me-hi- co!"  
  
"Mexico?" The woman looked at D confused.  
  
"Please…" D spoke softly. They both stopped and looked at him. If anything, he was the one to pity. He was the one listening to them argue. The Hunter would never raise his voice to a woman. All it took him was a whisper and people usually stopped frozen and listened to what he had to say.  
  
"Lady Naomi, I'm thankful, but my role was to carry out her grandmothers wish and deliver her safely to her family. It's too dangerous with one extra person as it is. After Ray is with her family, I continue south."  
  
That made sense. Naomi understood where he was coming from and Araydia had never heard him speak that many words.  
  
So it was decided. Naomi remained silent with a straight face to recollect her dignity and Ray gave her a sly smirk.  
  
  
  
_______________________________  
  
  
  
By late morning, D and Ray were off again. The cyborg horse trotting across the countryside. It was an awfully hot morning. The man was starting to feel just a hint of dizziness from the suns beating rays.  
  
"So how'd ya like how I told that lady off?" A hint of amusement lingered in the girl's words.  
  
D said nothing.  
  
The girl sighed. "Just promise me we won't be staying at another ladies house again?" She had to call to through the wind. The girl couldn't control her voice from wavering from the horse's movements and her hair blowing wildly in the wind. Some of the strands getting caught in her mouth.  
  
D made no acknowledgment of her words.  
  
"D, are you mad at me?"  
  
Not a word.  
  
"Well I don't care if you are! I don't need to put up with some lady I don't know just because of her male interests!"  
  
He finally spoke up after a while. "Fine Ray. I promise we won't stay at another ladies house." 


	6. Chapter 5: Impressionable Stop

Chapter 5: Impressionable Stop  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It had been hours since they were riding. The young girl felt bad for some reason. Maybe because she was so rude to Naomi, maybe for disappointing D in some way. Whatever the reason, she kept quiet and didn't seem so sarcastic and bold. She didn't feel strong, and she hated that.  
  
Boredom set in. With nothing to do and tired of staring at the scenery she carefully pulled her bag into her lap, steady as not to loose her balance on the horse and pulled out some grapes. She snacked on those for a little bit and D could hear the sound of her licking the juice off her fingers.  
  
"Want some?" She held out a small bundle of grapes to him. He politely shook his head once and gently pushed her hand away.  
  
A few moments later, the man asked out of curiosity, "Where did you get those?"  
  
Araydia grinned. "Just because I was in a hurry to get out of there doesn't mean I didn't have enough time to raid the fridge." She giggles and plopped another grape in her mouth.  
  
But that didn't hold her out for long. Soon when the grapes were all gone, and Ray truly was sick of riding, boredom set in once more.  
  
"Can we stop some place?"  
  
"Not right now."  
  
The horse leaped over a rock, catching Ray totally off balance and plummeting into the man in front of her.  
  
"Please! This damn horse is rubbing my ass raw!" She shouted.  
  
About forty-five long minutes later, the cyborg horse finally came to a stop near a stream. The girl seemed more than eager to get off. D surrendered to her idea of stopping when the stream seemed like a good place to rest and he was getting tired of the girl's complaining.  
  
"I can't see how you can do this for a living."  
  
D walked right passed her, leading his horse to the stream. Even though it was part robotic, it still required the natural necessities that a real horse did. Water included.  
  
The young girl soon tottered behind him. "Do I have any legs? I can't feel them…" She said, more or less talking to herself. Not aware if she had an audience or not.  
  
"I'm getting kinda hungry again…" the girl complained.  
  
D sighed internally. "Ray, there's nothing I can do about that."  
  
"Isn't there another village near by?" she asked, sitting down near the bank of the stream on a soft patch of grass. She truly didn't want to get her dress wet or dirty.  
  
"I'm not sure." The man soon turned away from her and gently stroked the neck of the horse. Once the beast had finished drinking, the Hunter tied the reigns to the branch of a tree.  
  
After that D simple started walking off in an unknown direction.  
  
"Hey! D, where are you going?!"  
  
The girl quickly got up and proceeded to catch up to him.  
  
"Well, it seems you have faithful subjects, D." His hand muttered amused.  
  
"Quiet."  
  
"Me? I didn't say anything." D turned around and looked at the young girl. Apparently she was a lot closer in hearing range than he thought. 'I'll have to be more careful.'  
  
"Where are you going, D?"  
  
"I'm going to get some rest…"  
  
"Oh."  
  
Without waiting for anything further, D turned around and continued walking. It was now obvious he was heading to a spot under a mighty oak tree. He sat down on a patch of lush grass under the pleasant shade of the tree, leaning his back against the trunk. The truth was, he had started feeling groggy and the heat was getting to him. His Vampire half beckoned for sleep and not to collapse due to the temperature.  
  
Soon after he closed his eyes he heard footsteps approaching him. Araydia sat down in the grass as well, in front of him.  
  
"Are you feeling alright? You look awfully pale."  
  
"I'm fine…"  
  
"You know, it is kinda hot out here. Maybe you wouldn't be so hot if you didn't have that thick cloak on and that ridiculous hat."  
  
Before D could say he was just fine and would like to catch some rest, he felt a current of air swish over the top of his head as Araydia removed his hat. D's eyes went straight open. His hat protected his delicate skin from the sun's rays. Not that it would hurt, being protected by the shade of the tree, D just didn't prepare himself for the look of shock on the young girl's face.  
  
Araydia always thought he was middle-aged. An anti-social hunter who she figured woman must have been after for maybe the income he brought in. Now she saw what many other woman must have seen that she hadn't saw all along. He was…handsome. He was young. Very young. Appearing not much of a few years older than she was.  
  
D's prestigious height and whatever frame he was hiding under that armor suit and cloak totally threw her off. Ray soon noticed she was staring and desperately had to say something before she turned crimson.  
  
"Don't think you're getting your sombrero back. I'm keeping this." The girl said as she defiantly placed it atop her head.  
  
D shook his head. "Do as you wish, but for now I'd like to rest." His eyes drifted close.  
  
It seemed obvious he didn't want to talk or play 'gimme back my hat' like Ray had planned. She just looked at him dumbfoundedly as a different feeling washed over her. The kind that you know you've made an idiot of yourself, and this time you really care about the impression you've made.  
  
She set his hat next to him and walked back towards the stream. 'The horse makes better company than stupid D.' Ray thought.  
  
She sighed and sat back down in the previous spot she was sitting before. The poor girl didn't know what to do since D was going to take a little 'nap'. Araydia sat in her self pity and for the first time, understood what Granny and Aunt Kess had always been talking about. 


	7. Chapter 6: D's Secret

Chapter 6: D's Secret  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The young girl had many hours to think to herself. She drew in the sand along the banks of the stream and fed the horse some greens, but most of all, she thought about the weird feeling that she couldn't get rid off.  
  
Ray never wanted to marry. Granny always pressured both the girls to due so for the sake and welfare of the farm, but Ray always stood with a firm foot. Eventually Aunt Kess found a suitable man and became engaged. She would be leaving the farm, but would give a lot of her income to Granny. Ray on the other case…  
  
She could remember early days in school. Other girls would chase boys around for a kiss, Araydia would chase them around for a fight. She was a tomboy, and loved her farm life. The freedom of the pastures, the animals, the care and affection you gave and received in return. She never needed a man!  
  
'I'll never need a man, Granny! I can take care of this farm by myself!' that's what she use to say, but Granny knew she wouldn't always be around, and young Araydia would need a way to survive in the adult world.  
  
When the girl came of age and blossomed into a young woman, a few men would find themselves flirting with her and harshly rejected. Her bold and loud remarks were undesirable. She had no patience and was a horrible cook. She had none of the good qualities it took to be a good housewife. As the years went on, the girl didn't care what she wore or what she looked like. She just wanted to hide.  
  
And now sitting by the stream in what was now the afternoon, she felt ashamed of herself. The girl watched the sunlight dance off the water as she reflected on what happened earlier.  
  
She had never felt ashamed of the way she acted in front of a man. Sure some of them were cute, kind and wealthy, but…who cared? Not her.  
  
Unfortunately she wasn't able to prepare for the shock she got from D. 'Choco' wasn't as scrawny and ugly as she thought!  
  
"Oh I could just die…" Ray flopped into the grass. Getting her gown dirty and her midnight hair.  
  
  
  
________________________________  
  
  
  
D woke up about evening time and figured he had slept longer than he intended. Surely it wasn't safe to sleep out here with the young girl to take care of. He was sure there ways a village with a suitable Inn a few miles from here.  
  
The hunter stood up and brushed himself off. Spotting his wide-brimmed hat in the grass he picked it up and placed it on top of his head before making his way over to collect his horse and the girl.  
  
The gentle sound of snoring could be heard as D averted his attention to the source. He found a sleeping girl laying in the grass with locks of ebony pooled around her. For a girl who indeed could be irritating, she seemed so serene in her sleep. It almost felt like it would be a sin to wake her from her sleep, but they had to get going now if they wanted to find a safe place before nightfall.  
  
  
  
The girl felt someone gently shake her by the shoulder and she shifted with a displeased face. "Hmmm, go away."  
  
"Ray…" a soft voice called out. The girl took in another breath and continued her sleeping.  
  
D had no choice. He scooped the girl up and set her on the back of the horse, carefully so she wouldn't loose her balance. Ray immediately woke up. "Huh?"  
  
"We need to get going if we're going to find a safe place before nightfall."  
  
"Oh…" she replied sleepily. Araydia figured she could catch some sleep while they rode, but she didn't trust any man during her sleep! There would be no one to protect her. Not that D would ever take advantage of a girl, or anyone for that mater, the girl trusted no one. A man had yet to earn her trust.  
  
D put one foot in the stirrup before Ray called out; "I don't think so! I'm steering."  
  
No sense in arguing with that.  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
  
So, Araydia took control of the horse. It was clear she knew what she was doing and D would tell her which way to go. D also noticed how quiet she was, without her usual amount of questions. Perhaps letting her take control was what she needed. It was an enjoyable ride, at least on his half.  
  
For the girl, she was glad she was in front of D. He couldn't see her blush every time the horse leapt over a rock or bush and his hand unconsciously slid up her stomach or her breasts bounced against it. She also hoped he couldn't feel her pounding heart. Ray was not liking this at all, she hated things she didn't have control over.  
  
_________________________________  
  
  
  
Before long, Ray was starting to feel tired. The affect of the nap hadn't worn of like she hoped, and her body longed for more sleep. D started noticing this when her posture assumed a slouching position and her head would start to lean forward. It was getting dark and a chill was setting in. It would be a few minutes longer before they reached the village.  
  
D snaked a hand up in place of hers holding the reigns and the other hand pressed the girl back against him. The girl looked up at him with weary but tired eyes.  
  
"It's okay to go to sleep, Ray. We should be reaching the village soon."  
  
Soon the young girl's eyes fluttered shut and she leaned back against D's flat stomach. The chill was starting to bite at her nose and cheeks, but the warmth of the Hunter's body seemed to do just fine. At least until she could find a bed where she could crawl under the covers and hide.  
  
Soon the man could see a village, visible against the dark background of a spectacular redwood forest.  
  
  
  
__________________________________  
  
  
  
The sound of cantering hooves was heard against the cobble stone roadways as our Hunter approached the local bar, which also served as an Inn.  
  
D in particular didn't like these Inn's. There was always a group of loud drunkards that seemed to keep everyone awake on the upper story long into the night with their blabbering. The man lifted up the sleeping girl from the horse and carried her into the bar. Perhaps there was a booth he could set her down on, away from everyone else. He didn't want to draw attention to her being under-age, and he most certainly didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression!  
  
Sure enough, there was an empty booth at the back, behind the counter where he set Araydia down and went to talk to the main owner.  
  
"I'd like two rooms for the night, please."  
  
A couple of laughing drunkards at the counter spotted the sleeping girl at the booth. They eyed her and exchanged looks with each other. Some grinning and looking around for whoever she came in with.  
  
"You got cash for that?" The owner asked as D rummaged through his pockets.  
  
Three of the men got up from their stools and proceeded to encircle her booth. The sleeping beauty obviously not aware of her situation as the men blocked the only way she would have to get out.  
  
"Look's like you're a little short of cash, there…" The manager said to D.  
  
The two other drunk men at the bar looked out for their companions dirty work. It seemed the girl was alone.  
  
"Well, well…ain't she a pwetty one." One of the men said through slurred words as the others cackled. They looked down at the girl for a reaction and were disappointed when she held none. She was indeed asleep, and well in the case for taking advantage of. They grinned and one of the men scooped the girl up.  
  
The other two at the bar laughed and quickly followed behind.  
  
Ray almost instantly woke up when she noticed the man who was carrying her off was not at all D. She didn't know where she was at all. It was dark but it must have been a storage room and she could make out five visible figures. They were men. Five men. The strength of a man against the strength of a girl. It didn't mater if her will was stronger, there were five of them!  
  
The poor girl was just about to scream when she was gagged with a cloth and felt two powerful hands pin her down by her upper arms. Her heart was beating in her hand, she had to do something!  
  
"D!" she tried to call out, but the sound wasn't pronounceable at all with a cloth in her mouth. She couldn't spit it out and one of the men produced a handkerchief amongst an uproar of laughter as they tied it around her head.  
  
They were laughing. How could they laugh at her like this, there was nothing funny about it. Araydia squirmed and struggled with all her might, but to no avail.  
  
Outside of the room in the main bar area, D turned around to find Araydia missing and a few empty stools.  
  
The weight of one of the men pinned her down by her hips to keep her from struggling and the girl screamed as loud as she could. Someone just had to hear her!  
  
'Oh this can't be happening! I can't believe I was so stupid to not wake up!'  
  
"Hey Harvy, we want a shot at her too!" One of the men called.  
  
As if it wasn't worse enough, now she was a morsel to be passed around. The poor girl felt her gown being lifted up and an endless roar of laughter, all mixed with the smell of booze from their breathe.  
  
A bright light shown in as a clash was heard when the door collapsed. All five men turned around with serious faces and the one pinning Araydia received the first good punch! The other men couldn't react so quickly as two of them scampered out. It just wasn't worth the risk of getting beat up and caught at the same time.  
  
One of the men threw a punch at D, but D was too quick for the drunkard as the punch met a crushing hand. He flipped the man over and threw him into the hallway. The other man, too drunk to put up a fight, followed in the footsteps of the others and bolted out of the storage room into the hallway.  
  
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The Hunter explained to the owner what had happened and apologized for the inconvenience. He even offered to pay for the door. Though what those men had done was truly an unexcitable act, the owner refused for D to pay for the door and let him have a room for free.  
  
All of the other rooms were occupied and only one was left. D didn't know how comfortable either of them would feel sharing a room, but considering what Ray had gone through, he would try to make it as comfortable for her as possible. Even if it meant he would sleep on the floor.  
  
The man told the girl to go upstairs in the room and lock the door, not to open it for anyone (as if she would), while he explained to the owner. All went well, and the man calmly knocked on the wooden door.  
  
It took a while before a shaky hand opened the knob and let him in.  
  
D stood in the main room as the girl looked up at him with a feeling in her eyes he couldn't sense. She was wearing a large white, buttoned shirt that barely covered her thighs. The shirt exposing her creamy colored legs and untamed locks of ebony cascading across her shoulders and down her back. She stood there limp.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
D made his way passed her sat down on a chair next to the bed. "Ray, they didn't,"  
  
"-I don't want to talk about it!"  
  
She stomped her way off into the bathroom, but didn't bother to shut the door. She had already taken a shower and was soaking her dirty and blood stained dress.  
  
"You can sleep on the bed, if you wish."  
  
He had such a soft, convincing voice. Even after the lights went out and the only light on was the one in the bathroom, Ray scrubbed the stains from her dress. When she came out of the bathroom and turned off the light, she didn't see D along her way to the bed and tripped right over him. He caught her just in time.  
  
"Whoa! Sorry…It's pitch-black in here, how can you see anything?"  
  
"I have good nocturnal vision…"  
  
Even though no one could see it, the girl furrowed her eyebrows and blindly crawled into bed. She faced D's direction towards the edge of the bed and tightly pulled the covers around her. When her eyes finally adjusted to the dark, she looked at the Hunter's sleeping profile.  
  
  
  
Once again, his hat was off. His eyes were gently closed, soft lashes fluttering in whatever dreams and nightmares his mind held. Wavy tendrils of chestnut brown made their way across his cheeks and shoulders. One hand gently rested across his chest as it slowly moved up and down in the rhythm of his breathing.  
  
"Hey, D…" a gentle voice called out into the room.  
  
D turned his head and looked right at her. A lock of hair gently falling from his cheek and resting behind his ear.  
  
"Thank you…I don't know what I would have happened without you."  
  
His gaze lowered. He was about to say something like 'Don't mention it,' but that seemed too out of place for him. Ray could easily see him now. His ghostly white skin contrasted with the dark surroundings.  
  
Once again, he didn't reply to Ray. The girl drew her eyebrows together as she studied him more. Indeed he was handsome, but it was an unusual type of beauty he held…  
  
"D, why do you hunt Vampires?"  
  
The man looked up at her. Araydia was shocked when she received a reply. "Because it's a choice I choose to make."  
  
She studied him a bit longer. He could feel her eyes on him and was getting the impression she was catching on to something.  
  
"I'm not stupid you know. You can tell me the real reason."  
  
His gaze still remained lowered.  
  
"Is 'D' even your real name? Or does it stand for something?"  
  
The man looked up at her. "Ray you should go to sleep, you've had a long night."  
  
"But I want to know!"  
  
"My past is best left for you not to know." He said gently. It wasn't an insulting phrase at all. Araydia understood where he was coming from perfectly well, but just had to ease the tension in the room.  
  
"Oh jeez, it's not like 'D' actually stands for 'Dracula'…" Ray giggled.  
  
D looked up at her resolutely. 


	8. Chapter 7: Dark Past, Part I

Chapter 7: Dark Past  
  
Part I  
  
Long after Araydia had gone to sleep, D laid awake looking up at the ceiling. He did go to sleep. He was quite bent on the fact that he might actually get through a whole night of sleep when he woke up around the early hours of the morning. Now the hunter couldn't get back to sleep, thus looking up at the ceiling.  
  
Surprisingly, the symbiot hadn't decided to bother him. D was left to his own thought. The hard wooden floor was really starting to get uncomfortable now...  
  
The man quietly stood up, careful not to disturb those who could get through a whole night asleep, and wandered over to the window behind the bed. He looked out at the town. It was like all the others, only this village was smaller, due to the population so near to the forest, and a rumored Vampire.  
  
A crucifix atop almost every building, the main light post lamps on either side of the streets were always left on. Though the town was in clear focus in front of him, his attention was elsewhere.  
  
`Why do you hunt Vampires?  
  
`It's not like `D' actually stands for Dracula...'  
  
The hunter looked out at the tall redwood trees looming behind the town. So tall...so dark...what the forest held beyond those trees was their secret. How old were they? What had they seen?  
  
The symbiot's amused yet muffled laugh could be heard. "Trees reminding you of yourself?" It smirked. "You are much like one, you know...never knowing where you're going to be planted. How tall you'll grow. How you'll live, and look..."  
  
"And what parasite's you'll end up with."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Hush...you'll wake her up." D said in a monotone voice. His gaze sank slightly, his heart felt too heavy.  
  
"These town's look like so much of the one's so many years ago, don't you remember? Town's like these all over the world..."  
  
Yes, D could remember.  
  
A time when humanity didn't have much hope. A time when other people controlled and ruled over you. A time when the whole world was engulfed in darkness, and only a small kindle of light was visible...  
  
"Junior..." A man called, elbows propped on a finely carved wooden table with hands neatly folded. "Junior, are you paying attention?" The man called once more, his chin resting firmly on his folded hands. Long claw-like nails at the end of each finger.  
  
He wore a white, poofy-sleeved shirt with frilled cuffs. A black vest laid firmly pressed against his chest with curled locks of long dark brown hair falling loosely across his shoulders. The room was lit by candle light and a chest board in front of him.  
  
"It's your move."  
  
A young boy of about eight snapped out of his daydreaming and at the chessboard in front of his. His father always beat him at this game, and he hated loosing! The boy threw a fit.  
  
"I hate this game!" He said with a funny accent and threw the board on the floor, the pieces of finely carved ivory knights and horses falling everywhere.  
  
"Young master..." called a servant standing beside them.  
  
"Let him go." Came the voice of the man sitting at the table. He hadn't flinched a bit and his hands still remained neatly folded. Shadows flickering across the room made his face scarcely visible. "He's got to learn you don't always win in life."  
  
"I shall pick these up, your Lordship."  
  
The little boy, dressed as finely as his father, ran through the stone corridors. Pictures mounted on each side of familiar ancestors all lit by elegant candle-light.  
  
"Young master!" Shouted a servant running up behind him.  
  
He was a werewolf, completely covered in silver fur and garnished with fine clothes. He caught up to the little boy on all fours and then sat down, dog-like style.  
  
"Young master, you seem displeased, would you like to try another game? I'll let you win, I'm not that good."  
  
"Oh shut up. You HAVE to let me win. You have no idea what it's like being me." The boy shouted, trying to talk fast through fanged teeth. His European accent was exactly like his fathers.  
  
"But, young Dracula..."  
  
"Oh stop calling me that. Go find something else to do than bother me, I want to be left alone."  
  
Young Dracula pushed open one of the tall gold trimmed doors. He wasn't very strong yet, but he managed to keep the door open long enough for him to squeeze through. He always came to this room when he felt mad or sad. It wasn't his room, it was, to him, a special room.  
  
`This must be the grandest room in all the castle.' He mused to himself.  
  
This was the room that held fine paintings of all the most important people in the Aristocrat family. Deep within the many paintings and hallways, was a painting of his mother. He loved to stare at it.  
  
When young Dracula finally came across it, he sat down on the rugged floor and looked up at it.  
  
She had straight, long black hair that looked like silk across the fabric of her gown. She was very pale and had a somewhat long, defined face. Her lips were bright red and her eyes an almost glowing ice-blue. Indeed it was a lovely portrait...  
  
Little did she know her son spent hours wondering what it would be like to talk to her. He felt she was the only one who would understand him. He longed for her...and yet he couldn't even remember her.  
  
"Junior...?" called the soft voice of his father, barely an echo.  
  
The young boy just looked up at him. The dark, regal man who was his father sat down beside him. The man reached out a brushed a stray strand of brown out of the boys face with a claw-like nail.  
  
"Tell me my son, what is bothering you?"  
  
The boy was quiet for a moment. "What was she like...?"  
  
The noble Dracula, Lord of all the creatures of Darkness and King of the Vampires, chuckled amusingly to himself. "Is it bothering you why a Vampire would love his prey and sire a son with her? Well, I'm not so black-hearted as you may think."  
  
"You're not answering my question."  
  
The man sighed. "She was very beautiful. Pleasant to be around and good mannered. I always believed no matter how human she was, she was fit to be an Aristocrat."  
  
That was the only answered the boy really received from his father. He barely talked about her and everyone could tell he loved the dark-haired woman very much. In fact, he still did. The only thing her son really knew about her was that she was dead. He was once told she died during childbirth.  
  
"She's the only one who understands me." The boy spoke up. "She knows what it's like...to crave other things than blood, have pity for the mortal and be the only one who can enjoy the sunlight."  
  
"The sunlight...?"  
  
The boy instantly realized his mistake as his father stood up.  
  
"You are NOT a Human!" Dracula shouted as his voice echoed off all the cobblestone walls. "You're a Vampire to be raised by our traditions and next in line for the throne! Don't you DARE betray me now!"  
  
And with a whirl of his cape, he spun around and walked away. All the boy could hear was the thudding of boots leaving him. He bent his head over his hands and cried. If only his mother was here...  
  
For the next month, young Dracula did everything he was told without complaint and little say. He seemed to give off a rather dull attitude that his servants were picking up, but never failed to stop writing literature and speaking in the elegant Aristocratic tongue. He did all his school work and studied hard about his ancestors.  
  
But still he seemed so unhappy...  
  
Since Dracula slept in the day, and few servants wandered the castle during daylight hours, the boy saw this as freedom to himself.  
  
The prince wandered down the halls to a destination only he knew. Whenever a servant was seen walking, the boy would hide behind a pillar or a corner or something close-by.  
  
He stopped in front of two well-bolted wooden doors and wondered how he was ever going to get pass this without being seen or heard. With much deliberation and being as quiet as possible, he managed to get one of the doors open and quickly hurried out the door.  
  
The prince took a few strides until he was blinded and fell to his knees! It was so bright it stung his eyes!  
  
"Gahh!" the little boy curled into a ball, shielding his eyes from the bright rays. This was the entranceway to the garden and the rest of the unfenced backyard. He had seen the outdoors in sunlight so many times, but had never been out in it.  
  
After a while, he could take his hands away from his eyes and focus on a few things through squinting. Years of darkness and dim light were taking its toll. The little boy stood up, wiping some mud off of his poofy-sleeved shirt and walked clumsily through the garden.  
  
He could enjoy things before he had only seen in books. He loved looking at colorful flowers and mountains and things only the outside world could hold from inside his castle walls. If he was ever caught out here, he would surely be in massive trouble.  
  
After strolling through the garden and seeing things like clouds and birds for the first time, he wondered who was taking care of this garden. Like any adventurous child, he wandered far beyond the garden, through a field of yellow wheat until he came to a creek.  
  
The little boy sat on a fallen tree that lay sprawled across the creek and watched as the water danced and the sound was soothing to his ears. All except the one. It was a shouting sound.  
  
The curious child scrambled off the log and ran along the edge of the bank until he came upon the source. They were about three boys, around his age, and a girl as well. Two of the boys were shouting as the girl was crying, the other boy was laughing.  
  
"Give me back my Casey!" The little girl with red hair in pig-tails shouted.  
  
"You can't have your stupid Casey, she's all wet now!"  
  
"Yeah," said another boy, "she wanted to go for a swim, she's to hot in that dress!"  
  
The girl plunged into the creek to fish for her doll. The young Dracula stayed low to the ground, unseen near the bank.  
  
Just to his luck, the doll had been taken down stream a bit and the girl running - as best she could in the water - after it. Her soggy dress slowing her down. "Mitchell, I'm gunna tell mama when I get home!"  
  
The girl reached over to pick up her pitiful doll when she saw a pair of boots. She gasped when she noticed a little boy, dressed like a prince with kind of long, curly dark brown hair.  
  
"Who're you?" she asked.  
  
Before the regal boy could reply, three other boys appeared behind her.  
  
"Who's that Kayla?", "He's funny looking" and "Gosh he's pale," were all their replies.  
  
Young Dracula seemed a little intimidated by the other human children and backed away.  
  
"What're you doing here?"  
  
"This is my creek, I can come here whenever I please." He said, a strong funny accent was clear, one the boys didn't understand.  
  
"Doesn't look like you get out much at all!" They all busted up laughing.  
  
The pale boy glowered and took off the other way. He could bully his servants around, but not human children. The red-headed girl ran after him, soggy dress, wet doll and all.  
  
"Wait!" she called.  
  
The boy running in front of her wasn't stopping. "Wai---oof!" she lost her balance and tumbled forward. The young boy stopped and turned around. Feeling guilty, he walked over to her where she lay crying.  
  
She scratched her little arm on a thorn bush pretty well.  
  
"Umm...are you alright?"  
  
She looked up at the boy. "And you're not even going to help me up!?"  
  
"Oh! I'm sorry..." he held out a hand. She took his hand and helped herself up before concluding, "You're awfully pale. Are you sick?"  
  
"No..." the boy eyed the blood from her scratch.  
  
The little girl wiped the blood away with her dress. "What..?" she asked looking up.  
  
"Uh, nothing."  
  
The little child with red hair in pigtails, freckles and brown eyes smiled. "At least it was just Casey this time. They usually take my glasses and throw them in the stream. They think it's hilarious when I try to fish them out."  
  
She smiled full-heartedly and extended her hand. "My name is Danielle."  
  
"I'm Dra...D-d. D."  
  
"Do you have a lisp?"  
  
"No."  
  
Danielle giggled to herself and introduced `D' to her doll. She then invited him to play and they played for hours. `D' had never played games like these before. Hiding as prey and finding it like a predator in a way the human child saw as fun. And chasing each other without any purpose must have been a human thing. Whatever it was, D was enjoying himself.  
  
Towards the end of the day, the both ended up sitting on the log overlooking the stream. Those boys teasing Danielle had ran off long ago. D even learned one of them was her brother.  
  
"Don't you have any brothers or sisters?" she asked. The boy with dark brown hair shook his head.  
  
"Why are you so pale?"  
  
D shrugged.  
  
"Do you really own this creek?"  
  
The boy looked at her confused. "Do you always probe one for so many questions?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
The boy laughed, careful to keep his fangs from notice. Danielle giggled too. It was starting to get late and she was just about to bid `D' a goodnight and invite him to play again tomorrow, when a monstrous howl shook the trees and made the birds scatter everywhere.  
  
"Oh my gosh D, that was a werewolf!" Danielle cried. She grabbed D by the hand was about to run with him, when he looked at his face which held no shock.  
  
"Don't worry Danielle, you're my best friend, he won't hurt you."  
  
She stopped in her place. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Young master!!"  
  
A werewolf ran towards them on all fours as fast as it could. Danielle, terrified beyond all her eight years clung to D.  
  
"Young master, what were you doing out in daylight!?? I'm thankful you're still alive! You must return to the castle now! Before your father..."  
  
"Alright." D replied calmly.  
  
The werewolf thought it was odd how D, a Vampire child could withstand the sunlight without any affect. He was patrolling the castle when he saw one of the large bolted doors was unlocked. Figuring at first someone might be in the castle, he relented when knowing the doors could only be unlocked from the inside. Someone had gone out...  
  
He had been searching for the boy - not at his studies - for hours. Now with a human child clinging to him, was the young boy perhaps taking matters far enough to go outside for his meals?  
  
"I'll see you tomorrow Danielle, right?"  
  
She stared at him the wide eyes. "You...you're...the Aristocrat's son?"  
  
D nodded. "But...you're still my friend, right?"  
  
The werewolf couldn't believe what he was hearing. Their future Lord was making friends with inferior mortal children!?  
  
She nodded and slowly backed away from them, then took off.  
  
The servant studied his young master. Perhaps it was just child innocence. He would have to loose his friend when he got older. 


	9. Chapter 7: Dark Past, Part II

Chapter 7: Dark Past  
  
Part II  
  
The little prince strolled down the dimly lit hallway accompanied with his werewolf servant. He was being strolled up to his room for a fresh change of clothes when unfortunately, his father had already awakened and was walking towards them.  
  
He was pleased to see his son and stopped to greet him. "How did your clothes get to be so dirty?"  
  
`D' looked up at the werewolf as if queuing him to answer. But the servant was smart, he wasn't go to lie to Dracula. D was left on his own.  
  
"I, uh..." Dracula looked down on him intently. "It's not mud, I was helping chef Brimma in the kitchen and..."  
  
"Ah, I see." The regal man nodded and dismissed his son. "Go get into your formal wear and meet me in the dining room for supper."  
  
Unfortunately, he hadn't dismissed the servant.  
  
"I'm not going to sit here and let him lie to me. Now tell me why he has mud on him." Dracula said with cold eyes gazing right at his servant.  
  
The boy came into the dining room in a formal attire and took his seat across the long wooden table, gazing at his father. A bowl was placed in front of him by a servant, filled with a dark substance that held a particular smell. Blood.  
  
Not once did his father lift his gaze to meet his young son's.  
  
D took his spoon and only took a few sips of the blood/soup. He started staring at it until his father spoke up.  
  
"So...How did your studies go today?" He asked. His voice not sounding like regular. A few of the servants took this as a sign and started to leave the room.  
  
"Where are you going? I did not dismiss you." He averted his gaze back to his son.  
  
D stared forward. "My studies? They went well...Like any other day."  
  
Dracula didn't look amused and practically gulped down the whole bowl of blood/soup. Not minding his manners at all.  
  
"You're not to associate with that child again."  
  
The boy looked down.  
  
"Junior...let this be your warning. You may be young now, but when you grow older, it won't be like this. Stop your foolishness. You will not go outside again or I will punish you. Severely. "  
  
"Yes, father."  
  
He obeyed his father's rule. And for the next several hundred years, D didn't go outside. He looked around fifteen now. Still young and fresh, but he was mature now, his attitude had changed a bit.  
  
He took his studied seriously and as time went on, talked a little bit less. Now he had more important things to say, but he still held a somewhat arrogant attitude. He bullied his servants however he wished and held his title proud.  
  
Less and less were servants finding him in the grand painting gallery which held the portrait of his mother he so often use to love to stare at for hours.  
  
He had made his father proud.  
  
Little did they know he had started another frowned upon human habit. Many of his servants found that he was loosing his appetite, but in fact, his cravings for blood were now fewer than before. In the middle of the day, D would sneak into the kitchen and help himself to whatever `human' foods were around. He even liked fruit.  
  
One day, he was even caught! The servant found it rather funny how all this time, the strangest food was missing, and it was their young Lord. He was the kitchen thief, and yet, all of the things normal Vampires eat were left untouched. Strange.  
  
With due time, that habit stopped too. But more habits were developing, closer and closer together.  
  
Their lord ordered more candles for his room. He almost had the brightest room in all the castle.  
  
Then one day, Dracula said something to him he never would forget. He didn't understand it at the time either...  
  
The dark man had knocked on his door and invited himself in. He sat down on an elegant chair and studied his son strangely.  
  
"Junior, you really need to be more attentive with your actions," he spoke softly, almost a murmur. "Just do me a favor as well for yourself,"  
  
Dracula knew, no matter how hard he could try and push his son, the human habits were never going to leave, and he couldn't keep on continuing to be mad at his son for them.  
  
"Whatever human-like habits you insist to develop, don't involve anyone else. Keep them a secret, if best, even keep them a secret from me."  
  
The youth studied him intently, but he couldn't understand where his father was coming from.  
  
He was a Vampire that was part human.  
  
`Don't my servants understand that?'  
  
One day, D was studying literature in the Grand Library when he heard shouting from outside. It was the same kind of shouting he heard the met Danielle, and this child-like shouting rekindled a spark of interest in him.  
  
He marked his place in the book and walked over to the window. They were young children about eight to ten - or so D guessed - playing a game of `tag'.  
  
"Hey!" one of them shouted. "Someone's in there?"  
  
D blinked when he released he was the target of their attention. The shadowy figure in the glass panel window stepped back. He was garnished in all black today, with his somewhat curly brown hair back in a ponytail.  
  
His father wasn't going to be awake for a while...  
  
Before D knew it, he braced himself for the outside world, pushing his fathers warning to the back of his mind and was more sly now, as to not get caught.  
  
He adjusted to the brightness quickly and stepped down the steps until he was in clear view of the children. They all stopped their running around and looked at him.  
  
A little girl with red hair, which D instantly knew would be his favorite among the group, shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand and called out to him.  
  
"My mom said nobody lived in this castle."  
  
"Well your mother must have been misinformed." He called back with a soft voice accented with a strange tongue.  
  
"Want to play with us?"  
  
He smiled. The children upon seeing this trusted him. Of course they poked about him with questions of his inhabitance of the castle and paleness, but he politely brushed them off. He stayed close to the red-headed girl as they ran about. He was also careful about his heat syndrome.  
  
Where ever she ran, he ran in pretty much the same direction. She was a cute little thing, almost in his eyes as cute as Danielle was. He was glad the human children had accepted him.  
  
From the last time he had been outside, a wheat field was visible. Now many houses were there where the field once was. The town was getting bigger...  
  
He soon learned their names and again replied that his was `D'. No more, no less.  
  
Day by day he was starting to get away with being absent from his studies and going outside to play with the children. The red-headed girl still remained his favorite. Her name was Kindra.  
  
Sometimes Kindra by herself would come and ask D to play. She would even throw pebbles at his window. D would even sometimes bring his books out to her and teach her a few things about this and that. He was taking the role as a big brother to a human child and...enjoying it.  
  
None of his servants, or his father, ever thought he was up to something.  
  
It continued like this for about two more years, when one day Kindra asked D why he never looked a day older than the day she first met him. She never saw him the next day, or the day after that.  
  
Soon the children found a new place to play altogether.  
  
D was very upset with this.  
  
For a few more years, he stayed inside the castle. Never once bothering to go outside. He even then developed a knack for not liking the taste of blood. The thought of were it came from just disgusted him.  
  
One day, the young D grew intensely bored. He thought about his friends from years ago when a pebble hit his window.  
  
`Could it be?'  
  
D looked out the window to find a maiden in her late teens with firey red hair throwing pebbles at the study window.  
  
Before they both knew it, D was running out of the castle and Kindra running towards him. They crashed into eachother with a hug, of course with D, it was more of collapsing with heat syndrome.  
  
"I barely recognize you, Kindra."  
  
"You haven't changed a bit!" she mused. She had a lively voice and had really blossomed into a beautiful woman.  
  
They used the rest of the day to catch up on whatever gossip they left out on over the years. D was glad he had his beloved friend back. His favorite one of the group. Unfortunately, that was the last day he ever saw her.  
  
The young Lord came down to dinner that evening, with almost a skip in his walk. He seemed rather animated this night, though still kept to himself.  
  
He stopped when he found the Dining Room empty. He wondered where everyone was and walked down the main hallway a ways more until he saw his father.  
  
He was sitting in the throne room looking regal and full of hatred. Servants were around him and many other Lords and Aristocrat Ladies before him. They all stopped and turned to stare at their Prince.  
  
D remembered. He was suppose to be present for a Noble Meeting. It completely slipped his mind.  
  
Dracula stood up, garnished in black before his court and surprisingly, addressed his son, instead of his court.  
  
"It seems my son is found of human childplay."  
  
D stepped backed. His father would humiliate him in front of everyone.  
  
"Well go on Junior. Tell them. What's it like to play with mortals?"  
  
Whispering could be heard throughout the whole room. D waited for it to die down. Perhaps he could humiliate his father as well, making everyone thing he had raised a completely wrong son.  
  
"What my father speaks is true." The Prince said, not once taking his eyes away from Dracula's gaze. "Actually, it's been going on a lot longer than you think. I've been playing with their children for hundreds of years."  
  
The court gasped. Then the question broke out among everyone about how young Dracula could play with human children, when they only played in the daylight.  
  
That was an unexpected turn for both father and son.  
  
The talking soon was hushed harshly when Dracula walked forward a few feet from his son. He spoke directly to him:  
  
"I told you if I was ever to be told that you were outside among inferior humans, mingling with them on the same level...there would be a severe punishment, and you will rightfully take what is coming to you."  
  
The Vampire King turned around and spoke to his court; "If I cannot keep my son away from the humans, then perhaps humans should not live near my son."  
  
"No!" D cried. He didn't care to make a scene. "How can you kill without reason!? You kill for sport!" the young naïve boy took a step forward as Dracula took a step back.  
  
"Punish me, father. Like you said. It's unjustified to kill the innocent!"  
  
He had just offended half the Nobles in the room, they weren't taking a liking to this.  
  
"He's brainwashed!" Heads turned to see who was calling out before their Lord and Prince. It was a werewolf servant.  
  
"They've brainwashed him! They've twisted him into believing that he's their friend so he could protect them from us!"  
  
Indeed this servant had everyone's attention.  
  
"He eats like them! He craves the light like them! He plays like them! He feels like them!"  
  
The crowd was now an uproar. A few even shouted things suggesting young Dracula to never be King.  
  
`If I can't live as a Vampire....' Thought young Dracula.  
  
"QUIET!" Their Lord shouted. "My son, your punishment has yet to come. And so it shall...."  
  
An old voodoo witch, dressed in a filthy cloak walked barefootedly forward. "And so you shall be cursed, my Prince." Came a haggard voice from the shadowed cloak.  
  
The old woman chanted a few words, conjuring spirits that descended from the walls and hovered over the heads of the patrons of the room. The spirits all took one form, and before the young boy knew it, it was dashing towards him!  
  
D barely took a step back when he was thrown across the room. An unbearable pain throbbed through his body, traveled down his arm and coursed into his left hand. The boy screamed from the pain, blood dripping from his hand. A darker tint of blood than that of a human.  
  
D rose to his knees, clutching his hand to his stomach. Laughter protruding from his hand. Blood bubbles splurting out as a hideous mouth took form.  
  
"Dracula my son, Junior, you have caused this curse yourself you know."  
  
The poor boy sat there, letting the pain rip through him. He had to recollect himself before talking, if he ever could.  
  
"I..." he gritted his teeth and knelt over. His vision was starting to feel blurry as a glow illuminated from his eyes.  
  
"My, mother...was a human.."  
  
The whole court gasped in shock. "Our Lord!?"  
  
"I...am part human." He clutched his teeth together, squinting his eyes.  
  
"If...you kill the humans, I...will.." the breathed in the pain. "I'LL FIND A WAY TO KILL YOU!"  
  
His plunged into eternal damnation as his Vampire side took control. He tossed his head back and screamed loudly, more like a Vampire roar. Teeth exposed and all.  
  
His world was gone. He was now hated by his `kingdom' and his father. A betrayer. A disgrace. It pained Dracula, he no longer held a son.  
  
His son was now unconscious, laying on a beautiful imported rug with his dark blood pooled around him. The poor thing was clutching his cursed hand. So young he was...he held so much promise, and now the Vampire race would surely be doomed once Dracula was dead and no longer their King.  
  
The regal Lord of Vampires knelt down beside his son. He was barely awake now and Dracula laid a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Dracula, Junior, leave. If you do not then you will be killed with the humans."  
  
"Dracula....my name...is not Dracula. I am.." he curled inward on himself and choked a painful cough. "'D'..."  
  
`D' was banished from their historic land. Forever without a home now and forever without peace. Torn between two races of which neither one he was accepted.  
  
He ran from the castle that night dressed in his favorite attire, one that was completely black. He would later wear a cloak to forever conceal himself and a hat to forever hide his identity. D, or so he called himself, was left to wander the world.  
  
In the text of history books, it was written in black and white that on the night Dracula's son disappeared, he led the largest massacre on the humans ever known.  
  
It was also rumored that the King of the Vampires was dead and that his son was a Hunter. 


	10. Chapter 8: Trusting the Damned

Author Note: Sorry it took me so long , guys! You have my utmost apologies. I was just about to finish the last chapter when I became grounded due to school grade . But I have managed to finally finish it and here you go! Enjoy!  
  
Chapter 8: Trusting the Damned  
  
  
  
  
  
Years passed on. Years turned to decades, decades to centuries. Time meant nothing to the immortal, and yet it was everything. D traveled the world on the back of a dark horse, though as experience soon taught him, it was better to use a horse part robotic. Such a beast could run faster without tiring, less prone to attack against creatures of the night looking for an easy meal and it didn't need the constant care a normal horse on the road did. But this still didn't satisfy D.  
  
Centuries later, he chanced upon some information concerning his mother. He learned that what his father told him was a lie, that in fact she had not died by childbirth, but she had died soon after he was born. By Vampire hands.  
  
According to all the talk of historians and text books, the Aristocratic Vampires could not bare the fact that their King choose a filthy human as his bride when he was surrounded by so many beautiful etiquette Vampiresses. Not all of the Vampires knew this though, only a selected few. They had known that the son of Dracula was part human. This made him weak in their eyes and unworthy. One Vampiress in particular. She had so longed to be the Queen of Vampires, to have the love of their Lord and bare a powerful child. When she heard of this news, she was outraged and insulted.  
  
So as rumor had it, she had her dark companions kill the human beauty and kill the child. They never got around to killing the child for they were killed themselves. Unfortunately for her, Dracula didn't search for a new bride like she had wanted. The child was still alive and there was nothing she could do about it.  
  
This only made D hate Vampires even more and he vowed he would hunt them from the Earth.  
  
The cursed demon in him however, proved to be kind of a side affect against the Vampires. Though it was clearly his curse, he aided him on his quest for hunting them. The symbiot was filled with knowledge, though whether he wanted to share it was to D's annoyance. Indeed a parasite, it was a helpful one.  
  
And that's as he remembered it. Now, gazing out this window, he felt tired once more, and he welcomed it.  
  
He yearned for human sleep. The young girl Araydia had been fast asleep hours ago, and as D turned around, he saw her lying there.  
  
She was an outcast among her own kind much like him, but she held so much promise. She had a future, and she would be soon reunited with her family. And being so annoying in the daytime, she seemed so peaceful in her sleep, as though nothing could harm her, as though nothing wanted to disturb her. By now after calmly rolling over in her sleep, the blanket had slipped away from her curled up frame and she lay there shivering.  
  
D moved forward to pull the blanket back over her, thinking nothing of it, but she turned over again, her face towards the light of the window.  
  
By now most of the lights in the town had turned off, all except for the street lamps which would always remain on out of fear, but now, the moon was sinking low. Her lips were slightly parted and her thick lashes quivering from a bad dream. The moonlight shown across her glossy raven hair, giving it a bluish tint, and her pale skin all the more brilliant. She was a girl on the verge of becoming a woman.  
  
To D, nothing seemed more beautiful than a woman with the spark of youth and promise in her eyes. It was enough to make him wish he wasn't who he was and stay there, but then he kicked himself internally once more for thinking such ridiculous thoughts. You can't change who you are.  
  
Ray whimpered slightly in her dream and her eyebrows knitted together. D's powerful frame stood over her like a shadow and he gently leaned down to brush away the stray locks covering her face.  
  
Shocked, Araydia felt something touch her in her sleep as if wanting to devour her and she shot up like a bullet, clutching the hand to the monster.  
  
She dug her nails into it's skin and repressed the urge to scream when she saw it was only D. Not a monster that wanted to devour her, but a strange man halfway leaning over her bed with her clutching his hand and not letting go.  
  
"D?" Araydia stared at him with wide, horrified blue eyes.  
  
"ouch…" something said in a monotone voice, Ray not realizing it was coming from D's clutched hand.  
  
"I'm sorry!" She instantly let go and brought her hands to her face. D rubbed the puncture marks, knowing they would heal, when he saw Ray's shoulders slightly heaving as if she were crying and her hair tumbling around her like a mess. She even broke out into a cold sweet.  
  
"I'm sorry, I just…" she choked back a sob, "had a bad dream. I don't want to stay here anymore! I want to leave right now! I—" the girl paused for a moment and look up at him. The tears streaming down her cheeks seemed to stop.  
  
"That wasn't you who said 'ouch' was it…"  
  
D just stared at her silently. Ray was starting to get use to his silence speaking for him. She reached for the hand the nearly ripped off and turned it palm up. Even when she saw the delicate contour lines that resembled a face she didn't scream. She just looked forward and let go of D's hand.  
  
"I knew you were a freak."  
  
The hunter just blinked. Not only had she now known about his left hand, but that she practically heard their conversations for the past few nights.  
  
"I knew you were talking to someone, it wasn't just in my head!"  
  
She wiped the tears from her eyes away. The girl had nothing else to say, her mind was more concentrated on leaving here as soon as possible, but then she started feeling tired again.  
  
D shook his head and brought the blanket up around her. "Go to sleep, Ray. We'll leave in the morning."  
  
She nodded with her eyes close and wrapped the meek blanket around herself. D settled back into his spot and lay there with his back turned to her. The girl watched his dark auburn hair fall across his back to the floor. But if felt to her as if she were looking at him through different eyes now, and she couldn't understand why…  
  
"My dream was about you…" she spoke softly. "You…you were a vampire and you wanted to kill me."  
  
After the quietness fell, he sighed softly. "In all my years of being a Vampire Hunter, I have never killed a human, Araydia." His voice sounded tired.  
  
D thought that might have been the end to whatever she had to say when she asked him something rather startling.  
  
"Hey D…could you turn into a vampire if you really wanted?"  
  
He turned on his back with one hand resting across his chest and looked at her. In the gently moonlight she could see that his eyes were dark blue. Not blue like hers, but they were not eyes of a creature of the night, nor the harsh eyes of a hunter that seeks danger, they were the eyes of a person who held compassion.  
  
"Why do you say that?" he said softly.  
  
"Because…You were a Vampire in my dream. And my dreams don't really lie to me…it's a gift I've had since I was little. Once in a while I get these nightmares and they mean something, and I don't really know what."  
  
She looked down and saw that she still held his attention, his expression hadn't changed at all.  
  
"I thought you were one of them…You just seemed so different. You're the only person who hasn't really yelled at me or told me to shut up. Well, at least not out loud. You're different, D…"  
  
His gaze shifted to the far corner of the room so she could only see his lowered eyes.  
  
"I'm not exactly 'one of them', only part." And he had no shame in saying this. Even if it was his secret, he didn't have to hide it from her.  
  
"I know you won't hurt me D, I trust you." Araydia smiled at him, but he didn't even look up to see it. Those words didn't bring any comfort to him at all, he felt as if he wasn't worthy of anyone's trust for fear he might break it when he couldn't control himself.  
  
The girl nestled under her blanket sighed softly. Then she gathered her courage to ask him one more question:  
  
"D, have you ever been in love?"  
  
He lay quiet for a while and she could read by the expression on his face he was thinking.  
  
"No…" D replied softly, "I don't believe a man like me is capable of love."  
  
Ray furrowed her brow and drew in on herself, bringing her knees to her stomach. "I don't believe you," she whispered, more to herself than him.  
  
And with that, the young girl pulled the blanket up around her, and instead of going to sleep, she clumsily stepped one foot down from the frame of the bed and before D could realize, she sunk down beside him, next to him. She was neatly resting her head on his chest as if she found comfort in him and one hand lay across his belly. Some of the blanket was even sprawled out over him.  
  
He jumped for a moment, not expecting this at all, not use to it. He wished as hard as he could that she would go back to her bed where she would be safe from him. He didn't trust himself, he didn't know if he would hurt her, but he didn't want to. She closed her eyes and could hear his heart gently pounding. Of all the things he was afraid of, this is what made his heart pound.  
  
Years of self control had took their toll. An innocent maiden could lay down beside a part-breed Vampire and remain untouched, even with crimson sweet blood coursing through her veins. D just simply turned his head the opposite direction of her vulnerable neck and closed his eyes. He was also trying to relax in an attempt to make his heart stop pounding.  
  
Finally after calming down, he sighed tiredly as a pale hand lifted and claw-like nails ran their way through the girl's soft hair to lull her to sleep. It worked like a charm and he found himself drifting off into sleep as well. 


	11. Chapter 9: The Countess Lily

Chapter 9: The Countess Lily  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Araydia got her wish. As soon as the light of the morning sun filled the room, they left.  
  
"Just beyond this forest Ray, you'll be with your family," D reassured her.  
  
The girl looked at him and smiled. He was leading the robotic horse by the reigns while she sat atop the saddle, feeling like a lady for the first time. The gentle breeze blowing her hair across her shoulders and rippling her gown. She felt a strange spark inside, and it had something to do with the night before. She felt closer to D, which made her feel special.  
  
Though sad enough by the next day their journey would end, she would be reunited with her Uncle. She didn't really him or his family, but they were family non the less. Her mind drifted to Aunt Kess and Granny's condition…  
  
She thought about all these things for a while, just listening to the birds high up in the redwoods and the brushing of D's legs passing the ferns and the soft thudding of the horses hooves against the trail. It was a beautiful forest, completely alive.  
  
And hours passed. Ray wondered if D was getting tired but he refused her offer of giving him some room on the horse. Both of them took in the scenery, until about the afternoon.  
  
They chanced upon a stream where they could rest and the horse could drink. D hadn't said a word to her most of the day. This wasn't surprising. The sun was shining high above even through the thick pines and making the water dance as it rushed over the small boulders.  
  
Wind blew through the top of the trees, making the great redwoods rock and a few birds scatter from the branches. The air was sweet and smelled of pine. How could anything disturb this forest, the girl wondered.  
  
It was time to go on though. D figured they wouldn't get out of the forest till the next day and they would probably be spending a night out here.  
  
He led the horse once more and continued till the trail all but disappeared long ago and one was just left to guess which direction to go. The trees were getting taller, wider and thicker as they went along, allowing few sunlight to pass through the pine needles.  
  
The trail started up once more, as if it started once more from nowhere. D figured ferns must have grown over it from a rainy winter and thought nothing of it.  
  
Araydia had remained quiet. She must have been busy taking in the beauty of the ancient forest and probably didn't feel like asking D her usual bombardment of questions. The wind must have died down, because a breeze no longer blew the girl figured it must have been getting late because the birds no longer sang.  
  
The raven-haired girl just glanced around from time to time as they went on. She was starting to get a sinking feeling in her gut and she figured she was just being a baby. If this really was a scary place, D would have never gone this way, and she had the man to protect her! He wouldn't leave her, he promised Granny…  
  
The man continued to lead the way, when he finally stopped. Something was wrong, he must have gone the wrong direction. Araydia looked around and grumbled;  
  
"Nice place to stop," as she viewed a fallen tree. She glanced the other direction and saw that a lot of the majestic pines were rotting. Their needle-leaves were a reddish brown and their bark crumbling.  
  
"D…" the girl whispered as he turned his head towards her, "The forest is changing…"  
  
And is if on cue, the cyborg horse reared up and knocked the girl off. The beast flailed its front legs in the air, and gave a frightening robotic snort before the reigns were yanked from D's hand and the beast turned and thundered in the other direction.  
  
Araydia hit the ground hard and must have hit her head, for she had the wind knocked out of her and her eyes closed. D was about to rush to her side when maniacal laughter filled the air.  
  
The man turned to see, and as if the forest shifted, an amused Mutant with fire-red hair was standing on top of a boulder that wasn't there against the dead trees a moment ago.  
  
"You humans are so stupid when you don't listen to your conscious." The demon mused. He leaped into the air and before D could see where he landed, another one appeared.  
  
"And look what he's brought with him." The other grinned, looking exactly like the Mutant before, but with ocean-blue hair.  
  
"The Mistress will be pleased," hissed yet another, a female Mutant, with golden-yellow hair.  
  
"Who are you…" D said more deadpanned that asked.  
  
"How flattered, he wishes to know who we are." The female Mutant mused. Now it was visible she was riding on top a large gray werewolf.  
  
"I am Rufus," The red-haired Mutant said with a twisted grin, "And this is Gormain," he said, pointing to the blue-haired Mutant, "and that is our sister, Aurelio," the gold-haired female Mutant grinned. She had the look of kill in her eyes.  
  
D instantly recognized the meaning behind their names. He had studied languages of the world in his upbringing and knew that Rufus meant red in Latin, Gormain meant blue in Irish, and Aurelio meant gold in Spanish.  
  
"We are the three elements." The female mused, "and that's all you'll know."  
  
And with that, the large beast jumped down from the high rock it was perched on and lunged at D. The hunter would have easily knocked the beast away had it been for the forest. It changed, completely shifted, blurring his vision and confusing his mind before one massive paw struck him upside his skull and he blacked out.  
  
  
  
______________________________________  
  
  
  
D could feel himself being carried effortlessly by two pairs of hands and voices he didn't recognize. At first they were all blending together, but then he realized it was Rufus and Gormain talking to someone and their sister Aurelio chuckling.  
  
"No, don't put him in the same cell as the girl, I want them separate." Ordered a smooth feminine voice.  
  
"Yes, Mistress." All three replied. D groaned in agony as he hit a hard surface. He blacked out once more.  
  
___________________________________  
  
  
  
When he awoke, he surveyed his surrounding and noted that no doubt he was in a cellar, underground, he could smell it. His first task was to find Araydia.  
  
The demon in his left hand chuckled and it echoed off the cobble stone walls. "Go searching for Vampires and they end up finding you."  
  
"Quiet. Where are we?"  
  
The symbiot proceeded to almost go into a trance, that thing it did when gathering knowledge from where D did not know, nor would understand.  
  
"I have a bad feeling about this one. We're in the castle of the Countess the people of Araydia's village fear."  
  
D looked around and found his wide-brimmed hat that had fallen from his head. He collected himself and stood up.  
  
"They took my sword." He noted.  
  
The damp air hung around him and was becoming thick to breathe. His boots echoed on the stone floor as he made his way over to the bars, and luckily, they were iron bars.  
  
"This dungeon is made to hold human victims, which they think you are," the symbiot said.  
  
D looked at the bars resolutely and gripped his hands over the cold steel. He took in a breath and pushed the bars apart with a heave and strength not known to any man, or your typical Vampire. The bars bent under the man's will and he stopped as they were just enough for him to squeeze his side- ways frame through. And with that, he ran as silently as he could across an echoing dungeon hallway to find the girl.  
  
"It's always a damsel, isn't it?" the sym teased.  
  
____________________________________________  
  
  
  
The dungeon was a lot bigger than D thought. Instead of consisting of just one hallway with a row of cells on each side, it consisted of many. How many people this Countess held in this place of death all at the same time was sickening. In many of the cells, corpses had been left to rot, completely untouched they had probably waited so long to be done a way with they simply died of starvation and left untouched.  
  
"You may not know this D, but I think I'm capable of vomiting," the creature made a face in disgust.  
  
D rounded a corner on his silent run and came to a complete stop. He heard something, he was sure of it.  
  
"Do you hear that?" the sym asked.  
  
"Murmuring…" D answered.  
  
Indeed it was. A chanting sound coming from the hallway just around the corner. He stepped silently closer to the sound. Now it started to sound like chanting. As D stepped closer, the sound faintly got louder until he stopped very near to the sound that was very clearly Araydia's very distinguishable voice.  
  
"Twenty-four bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-four bottles of beeeeeer, ya take one down n' pass it around…"  
  
"No wonder they put her in a cell underground." Said the symbiot. The girl turned her head in the direction and gasped.  
  
"D!"  
  
He brought a finger to his lips.  
  
"Right," she whispered, "I was getting so bored! The Three 'Stooges' left and I had no one to annoy!"  
  
The hunter didn't say anything to her, he just gripped his hands over the iron bars and proceeded to do what he did last time.  
  
"What are you doing?" came a harsh whisper as the creaking bars gave way under the man's strength. Araydia stared at him in disbelief.  
  
"Hurry."  
  
The girl nodded and easily slipped through the opening and followed D as he once more made his way through the dungeon, this time trying to find an exit. He stopped frozen once more and Ray crashed into him, he barely stumbled as the girl fell back with a loud thud against the damp stone floor.  
  
"Owwww! My a---" The dark man snatched the girl up from the ground and muffled her mouth this his hand to keep her from anymore outbursts. She was completely pressed against him, almost tucked underneath his cloak as if it would shield her from something she didn't see right behind her.  
  
Finally, Ray understood the reason why he was so worried about being silent and why he stopped running in the first place. Footsteps!  
  
"Did you see him?"  
  
"Where'd he go?!"  
  
Faint sounds off in the distance, echoing off the walls, as well as their footsteps. No doubt they were the sibling Mutant trio and right around the corner. He turned to leave the opposite direction when a fire-red haired Mutant stood in his way.  
  
"Going somewhere?" said Rufus sarcastically.  
  
The other two hurried around the corner.  
  
"Don't touch him!" Shouted Aurelio. "He's a Damphire and the Mistress wants to see him."  
  
Rufus's expression changed from one of a panther chancing upon a boar to a boar rearing its tusks at the panther. He was baffled.  
  
So their Lady Master had wanted to see him, Rufus knew what that meant. In a blur to human eyes, he snatched the girl while D was off guard and clutched her by arms behind her back.  
  
"Now you have no choice, you do as we say," He looked down at the young girl with wickedness in his eyes, "and the raven haired beauty here just might remain with her innocence."  
  
D gave him a harsh look. He hated being blackmailed, yet it was the only way the creatures of the dark could make him to what they wanted him to do.  
  
"Take her to the chambers." Rufus said to Gormain in a monotone voice and threw the girl at him. The blue-haired Mutant caught her and swung Ray over his shoulder. "I'll handle our friend here," continued Rufus.  
  
"Don't you dare harm her…"  
  
"Oh it's not the child I'd be worried about, it's what our Mistress is going to do to you." He smiled sinisterly, revealing two rows of shiny jagged teeth.  
  
  
  
___________________________________________  
  
  
  
He did what they told him. Which meant shedding the cloak for fear of any hidden weapons, the dagger from his belt, the other dagger in his boot. Where they had his sword was probably where they had his other weapons, and once more, he was in another cell-like place.  
  
This cell had no bars from which he could escape from, it was completely surrounded by stone walls on 3 sides, while the view in front of him continued down a while until it was completely dark. His hands were cuffed and his feet chained. This was the type of dungeon meant to hold Vampire captives.  
  
A single window lay above his head, with dim rays of light shining through it. And now he could hear footsteps echoing once more on the dark hallway in front of him. Two pairs of feet, and maniacal laughing. It was Rufus and Aurelio.  
  
"So how exactly do you know he's a Dhamphire?"  
  
"How else do you think he made his way through those iron bars."  
  
They both stopped when they were out of the shadowy hallway and looked at D. Aurelio stopped right in front of him.  
  
"Well. The price of a Vampire killing his own kind is death, the same applies to a half-breed. It's only proper that we kill you now."  
  
"No." The soft, unearthly voice of a woman called through the hallway. Both of the Mutant's froze and turned around. This was the voice of their Mistress.  
  
And out of the light she stepped. She stepped into the small rays of light that shot out of the window which made her all the more enchanting. Her hair was pure white with silver streaks and was long and flowing, all the way down to her ankles. Pale. Gothic. This was a usual trait. Her eyes were very enchanting as well. Completely silver, they were almost like an optical illusion to look at. Her lips held not even the slightest tint of pink from the rest of her skin, but they remained tinted with gloss. As she stepped, the train of her gown seemed to float behind her.  
  
"I am the Mistress of this Castle, the Countess Lily." 


	12. Chapter 10: Farther down the Road

Chapter 10: Farther down the road  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The Countess Lily was breathtaking. 'Shame I'd have to kill her,' thought D to himself. The Vampiress stopped just a few feet away from him and wave a graceful wave of her hand with claw-like nails, she dismissed the Mutants, but they did not entirely leave. They had disappeared into shadows of the long hallway and the Hunter could sense them there. He was curious…wouldn't she know the same?  
  
D looked up. The corners of his mouth were turned down and his hat cast a shadow over his eyes. "Where is the girl…"  
  
Lily chuckled softly, the white of her fangs showing. "The child? Oh you have no need to worry…She has a destiny to fulfill.  
  
"If you harm her, I'll--"  
  
"You'll what?" Lily ran her slender fingers through a lock of her white hair. "There's nothing you can do, Dhamphire."  
  
D did not reply. He simply seemed to be studying the ground. His face looked as if he had given in to defeat and realized there was nothing he could do about it.  
  
"I know very well you hunt your own kind, and it is punishment to any Vampire, any where that death is the consequence for killing your own kind. But what intrigues me Mister Vampire Hunter, is that you not only kill them, you hunt them, and yet, you are one…"  
  
The enchanting Countess lowered herself to his level. She sat neatly in front of him, her white hair streaked with silver seemed like a timeless waterfall cascading off her shoulders, down her back and on the stone floor. D lowered his head, shielding more of his face. He was not ashamed of her words, but it gave Lily the impression he was bizarrely ashamed of her beauty.  
  
"It's a shame I'm going to have to kill you, you seem like you've lived so long and came so far, but your quest for immortal death ends here, Dhamphire…"  
  
Lily rose up and turned her head to the shadows. "Bring me the child."  
  
The faintest sound of footsteps was heard scurrying off and after a few moments which felt like eternity to D, they returned clutching the precious child he swore to protect and deliver safe to her family. He couldn't allow this, he just couldn't allow them to hurt her. They could hurt him all they pleased, he would heal, but not the girl, not the innocent…  
  
  
  
The Countess walked in silent steps over to where Gormain held Araydia and Aurelio and Rufus watched. Ray's hair was a tangled mess and her bright eyes glimmered on the verge of tears. As Lily approached with her white hair streaming behind her, Gormain pulled the top of Ray's hair back which tilted up her face. The girl clutched her teeth in agony, the position revealing the girl's untouched and smooth neck.  
  
The Vampiress gently reached out her hand and ran her delicate fingers over the girl's throat, feeling the pulse of her heart beating in her veins. She then brought her hand back and smacked the girl clear across the cheek, sending her view facing a completely different way and some of her hair had been ripped out.  
  
Araydia held in a whimper the best she could but her cheek and tender area of her scalp stung.  
  
Lily turned to face D. "Does this anger you?"  
  
D said nothing. He hadn't even lifted his head.  
  
The Countess took this in and gave a small snort. She then faced the girl once more. Ray looked up at her with fear in her eyes and this time, the Vampiress dealt the girl a striking blow with inhuman strength, not just turning her head, but her body ended up a few feet away. The child doubled over in pain. D heard a 'crack' sound in that one.  
  
"Stop." Came his voice, only enough to get the Vampiress' attention.  
  
"Had enough, have you? That's exactly what your ancestors must have felt like when you rose up against them. I have been called rather ruthless, and this child that you seem to care about so much will just have to watch you die. Out of respect for you, I will kill her after you are dead, but you can be left haunted by her screams."  
  
"Nooooo!" Araydia called. Gormain only tightened his grip on her and Lily did not seem to have any compassion at all. Aurelio stepped forward with a golden dagger. It was a ceremonial weapon for human sacrifices, but it could very well kill a Vampire. Maybe not an incredibly powerful one, but all your typical Vampire needs is a piercing through the heart, and that's the end of his immortal existence.  
  
The Countess Lily grasped the long dagger in her pale hand, it was barely short of being called a sword.  
  
And poor Ray, the poor little girl who's lifestyle was not suppose to be like this. Not a farm girl like her. Now she was mingle in between Vampire affairs and she didn't want D to die…the only man who had ever taken care of her, had never been angered by her, even if it was what he was suppose to do, she just couldn't watch him die. She would be left with the same fate after he was dead…  
  
The poor child's knees were trembling as Lily knelt down once more and pointed the blade at him. D's head was still hung and Araydia didn't understand one thing…  
  
"You can't kill him!!" She screamed. "If his punishment for killing is death for killing a Vampire, then you're doing the same thing! He could rule over you if he wanted!"  
  
"Quiet!" Shouted Aurelio.  
  
"No…" replied the Vampiress. "What do you mean he could rule over me?"  
  
Ray hung her head to let the tears fall. "D, I know your secret. I knew you where part Vampire, but last night you murmured things in your sleep, you were haunted by it…"  
  
"She has nothing important to say, quiet her," said Lily as she waved her hand.  
  
"You can't kill him, He's Dracula!!" she sobbed.  
  
D still hadn't looked up, nor replied. Lily looked back at the Hunter in shock.  
  
"She's lying Mistress! Obviously the child is delirious."  
  
"Silence, Rufus."  
  
The Countess studied D for a moment and shook her head. "Dracula is dead. He was burned in the Massacre, only fire can kill such Vampires as Our Lord. He is far too young looking to be any Aristocrat of Importance."  
  
Aurelio tilted her hand and studied D for a moment as well. "But…didn't Our Lord have a son?"  
  
Lily stood frozen and furrowed her fair brow. "Yes, but…his son is dead. There's no way humans or Vampires would have allowed him to live. Or…did they?"  
  
The immortal woman stepped close to D after she set the dagger off to one side and pulled the hat off from his head. The hat fell from her fingers when she beheld the filthy creature she was about to kill who looked exactly like the infamous Aristocrat himself.  
  
"It can't be…" The Vampiress shook her head and Aurelio's mouth lay gaping. "After all these years, these rumors, and they are true…" Lily reached out her hand and gently stroked his cheek, then unpredictably she racked her claws/nails across his cheek. D grimaced in pain as the hot blood trickled down his cheek and jaw.  
  
"You are a traitor! You disgust me! You were to be our Dark Lord, our salvation, and you threw it all away to be with filthy humans!" She shouted and then whispered, "But I can give you a last chance…"  
  
Lily reached out her two delicate hands and cupped his jaw, pulling him closer and he allowed her to swiftly lap the blood off his cheek. She then brushed the bangs out of his eyes, but he would not bring himself to look at her. "I can give you a whole new generation…" She whispered in his ear.  
  
The Vampiress stood up and made her way back under the dim window light. It was obviously night now, ever since Lily had appeared. D quickly wondered how long they had been in this castle.  
  
"For years I had searched for the perfect Vampire. To be loved by a Noble man. One who knew how to treat a lady, a Vampiress. I wanted to be a mother while I was in my prime, to bare a powerful child, the child that would be the next Ruler of the Vampires. But no….My chance was over once that Human filth had been taken as the Aristocrat's bride and bore him a child."  
  
She paced back and forth, her hair flowing behind her, her gown.  
  
"I had to have her killed. And so I did. But the baby was too well guarded, and I lost my servants instead. And that filthy unworthy creature grew up." Lily glanced at D, "It grew up into a man, neither Vampire, or Human, but beautiful non the less."  
  
Lily knelt down and ran her fingers through the man's dark locks. "Don't think for once you got your beauty from that filthy woman, you got your beauty from your father, and by far, you surpass him…And so…I don't believe I have failed. I wanted to be along side of an Aristocrat and bare him a powerful son," this time, D was catching on to something, he raised his gaze and his dark blue eyes met her icy silver, "And now I think I shall…"  
  
Araydia had been well aware of all the conversation that had taken place, and her eyes widen when she heard those words escape from Lily's mouth. She was to make D the father of her child.  
  
Ray couldn't grasp this concept, she wouldn't allow it to set in, she felt like she didn't need to. She knew perfectly well that D held a code of honor and wouldn't sire the offspring of something he hated as much as a Vampire. The girl wasn't going to allow herself to worry, but then, Lily shot her a look of pure malice.  
  
The Vampiress approached Ray. "Such a pretty thing you are. Do you know what I'm going to do to you?" Lily said all this as if she was addressing Ray like she were her child, a child awaiting a harsh punishment, "You will become one of us, my child. You will be a creature of the damned and never again to see the sunlight of the earth. That will be your reward and your punishment, if my lord does not agree to my wish."  
  
"I'll never become a bitchy Vampire like you, my punishment would really be listening to you PMS all of eternity!"  
  
The Vampiress tossed her head back and laughed. "I'm going to have fun torturing you all of eternity. And D has no choice. He either grants me my wish, or he will have to watch an innocent girl be taken into Darkness." Lily looked over at D, "What'll it be my Dark Prince? Your seed or the girl's damnation?"  
  
The man clutched his teeth together. He couldn't allow such a thing to fall upon Ray. It was more of a burden on his shoulders than anyone could imagine. Such an innocent creature to fall from grace and it would be purely his fault, but then, if she weren't to be damned, he would have to surrender himself to the very Vampire he could hate more than his father, the one who killed the only person in the world he thought would understand him. She had killed his beloved mother.  
  
And this would leave him to forever be her captive until he could brake away. She would bare his child, and this child would in time be as powerful as him, if not more. More bloodshed, more innocent lives lost, either one was against his code of honor and against his entire being.  
  
And still, after all this contemplating, D hadn't replied to Lily. She was not familiar with patience being a virtue and figured he was not going to answer. Very well. She would put temptation right under his nose.  
  
She pulled Araydia from Gormain's grasp and held the girl by the arms so tight her nails left puncture marks in her delicate wrists. She forced Araydia to lean slightly into D's lap and tilted her head by pulling at her hair. Her throat was exposed and so near to his mouth. The smell of the blood on her wrists carried an aroma long forgotten into the air and into his nose. His breathing increased and he looked away.  
  
"You cannot fight it, it is your nature."  
  
This breathing was starting to thicken and the girl could feel his breath across her throat. Chills ran down her spine as she shut her eyes tight.  
  
"Such a beautiful thing she is, and how lonely you always think you are, and yet you can surround yourself, give yourself to any woman you choose and you don't allow yourself. You don't think a man like you is capable of love." She was reading his mind. She had been the entire time. "How so many men would take a woman by pleasure and you prefer pain. Your secret fantasies are not of pleasure, but of your Vampire nature. Don't lie to yourself, you _want_ her. You want to make her part of you, you want to feed on her…"  
  
He was squeezing his hands so tight his nails dug into the palms of his hands, the grunts he was fighting back were more clear as long, sharp fangs started to protrude from the corners of his mouth. His eyes were radiating an iridescent blue. The pounding of Ray's heart was like a drum in his ears, getting louder and louder with each heartbeat. He could hear the warm blood coursing through her veins.  
  
"You want her…You owe it to yourself…" The beautiful Vampiress whispered.  
  
D let out a meek 'no' as his fangs took their full form. Long, thick at the gum line and slender as they made their way down to the tips, just the look of them looked incredibly sharp. They were a magnificent set he no doubt inherited from his father and the drool started to collect at the edge of his lip. It was too much, he was fighting as hard as he could with the aroma of blood, the smell of panic and fear and the drumming of her heartbeat, he would give in any second. And this is what the Countess wanted, to bring out his Vampire side.  
  
And just when Ray felt the sharp tips of his canines, the breathing pattern of his hot breath quicken, a voice rang in D's head. Not the voices of long ago, the soft voice of an innocent girl not aware of the monster she put her hands in willingly; 'I know you won't hurt me D, I trust you.' And then that sweet smile.  
  
He started to pull back and summoning all the strength and will power he had, all of what he stood for, he chomped his jaws shut. The fangs stabbed into his gums like knifes.  
  
"Grant me my wish…" Lily whispered.  
  
"Fine." D said through clutched teeth. "Just let her go…"  
  
The Vampiress smirked, wickedly pleased. She pulled the girl back and released her from the tight grip. "Very well. I will let her go and she will not be harmed."  
  
Aurelio took the girl into her grasp, but in a gentler manner. Lily gave a wave of her hand and dismissed Rufus and Gormain. Surprisingly they had not taken Ray with them like D thought. Lily soon cleared up his question.  
  
"The girl can watch." She gave a fanged smile.  
  
Araydia gasped and averted her eyes all upon hearing this. She would squirm her way out of she needed, she closed her eyes and tried to make an effort to put her hands to her ears in that innocent little girl fashion, but Aurelio's grip wasn't as loose as she thought, just more gentle.  
  
Lily seated herself comfortably as she allowed herself to stroke D's hair. "How I've waited for this for so long…"  
  
The lovely unearthly woman leaned forward, placing her hands on the ground and kissing the masculine jaw line of the Hunter. His teeth had not vanished completely and she could feel them steel being clutched behind his lips. She then made her way to his lips and placed a full passionate kiss on them.  
  
Ray could hear the sounds of her sloppy kissing.  
  
Lily brought her hand up to caress the side of his cheek where she had scratched him and seemed a bit displeased he was not kissing her back. She then propped herself on her knees and straddled herself across D's waist, still kissing him, trying to unlock his innermost passions, and feeling all the more disgruntled. Upon bringing her lips back to meet the Hunter's she seemed bothered by his reluctantless.  
  
"Have you not pledged me my wish?" She asked in a tone that made him feel he was not keeping his side of the bargain.  
  
"The child…" He whispered.  
  
She gave a sly grin. Had he meant he felt uncomfortable with the child in their midst? That he couldn't express his true passions with an innocent creature in the room? Whatever it was, even though she wanted to make the girl suffer, she was the one suffering. If that was the case, Araydia would have to leave the room.  
  
"Aurelio, take her upstairs."  
  
"Yes, Mistress."  
  
The female Mutant did as she was told, but right before Ray disappeared under the shadows of the hallway, she gazed once more into the eyes of the man she trusted. D even brought himself to look at her before she left. What he saw in those eyes he could not tell, but they seemed to be saying; I trust you.  
  
As if instantly when Araydia had left, Lily straddled D's waist and began caressing his hair as if she had known him for years, revealing such affection. A gentle finger traced its way across his strong jaw and the Countess smiled.  
  
"It's pathetic to try and lock up your Vampire half. I think it's more…suiting."  
  
"More suiting…?"  
  
She began planting gentle kisses across his lips, even running her tongue across his fangs. It sent chills down her spine.  
  
"It's more suiting that you are like this…" She hissed and began to try and find a way for him to shed his skin-tight outfit. It outlined the beautiful muscles of his chest perfectly, but then he always covered them up with that hideous cloak!  
  
And what was D to do…to force himself into something, to give his highest form of affection to the one Creature of Darkness he hated more than any other. The one who killed his mother. How ridiculous of her to bare his son…  
  
Lily's lustrous, silky white hair hung from her face and brushed against the man. He could literally hear the increasing beat of her heart, slightly increasing with his own.  
  
"Kiss me, son of Dracula…"  
  
D shuddered at the thought, but Vampires had a different way of kissing, the kind that drew blood.  
  
Lily bit her own tongue, gently on the tip with her sharp fangs, just enough to be irresistible. The smell of the Vampiresses blood was overwhelming. The Hunter would do anything to resist the blood of a human, but the blood of Vampire? He never tried, but it didn't seem to apply to his code of honor. What harm in the blood of a Vampire could come to him? D leaned into the 'Vampire Kiss'.  
  
By now, with her lips completely locked with 'her Prince' in the sweet and bloody embrace, she couldn't remember a more satisfying moment. He was in his full Vampire form now, and his eyes were producing a beautiful blue glow. His fangs were fully mature. And then D didn't know what came over him…  
  
He began to shed her clothing as quickly as she shed his, though neither was fully exposed. The Vampiress' body was as lustrous as her face, completely pale with gothic beauty all over. Her pale arms and slender fingers were completely wrapped around D's neck and tangled in his thick hair. Her slightly sagging breasts pressed firmly against his chest. Every now and then, as D would run a hand with claw-like nails across her body, a soft moan would escape her lips, with the essence of blood in the corner of her mouth.  
  
She was lying with her soft back pressed against the cold floor of her dungeon and the pressure of D's weight on top of her. His lips were tracing the tender jaw of her cheek and up to her ear. As Lily's plan was falling into place, so was D's.  
  
He stretched his free arm out to retrieve something while his other arm was wrapped around Lily.  
  
"It's been so long since I've experienced something like this…" she whispered in his ear.  
  
"It's been the same with me as well…" D whispered back, trying to keep her as diverted and unsuspicious as possible. And with this, a pale, slender hand ran across her stomach and across her breasts. She let out a gasp by the coldness of his hand against her body. D could have never thought anything was so melodramatic.  
  
He began tracing around the firmness of her bust and she tossed her head back with her eyes close. Indeed she was a beautiful creature, so warped up in her own obsessions to pay attention to anything outside of her own pleasures. This was her naïve move, the distraction. Completely oblivious to D's other hand she thought was resting behind her head, to the hand caressing her breasts, the other hand quickly drew up and D plunged the dagger that had been disregarded on the dungeon floor into her heart!  
  
"You seriously think I could ever show any love to the Vampire that killed my mother! Wanted to destroy my, and my fathers life for her own selfish reasons! It's suitable…" By the end of his sentence, his voice had dropped to a passionate whisper.  
  
"What's….suitable…?" The Countess choked.  
  
"That I be the one to kill you, return to hell!" And he drove the dagger in farther, it couldn't have just pierced her heart, but went right through. The heart. The very thing that pumped the blood throughout a Vampires body, it could no longer pump, and this is what brings the immortality of a Vampire to its end.  
  
And as with every Castle without it's King, it crumbles. As soon as the blood of it's Master touches its walls and floors, it falls.  
  
D struggled to quickly dress himself and knew he had little time, he didn't know how deep in Lily's fortress he was, and the possibility of a main entrance collapsing was highly possible. He also didn't know where to find Araydia…  
  
The howl of a Vampire's corpse is a blood-curdling one. Lily's eyes by now had sunken into her sockets and the blood gurgled from her mouth, even in tiny bubbles. D averted his eyes, but even the spots of blood that squirted out of her precious heart were stained on the cobble stone walls. The ground was shaking all around him, he had to get out.  
  
The man placed his hat on his head and once again felt like D the Hunter, and not D the disgraceful Vampire. And with only one way of escape, he plunged into the dark hallway where Ray last disappeared.  
  
Human eyes could have never found their way through, but his eyes could. His feet plunged up the steps and through the labyrinth of corridors. D managed to make it up to what was a main level, above the cellar rooms, but no where to find Araydia. Not a Mutant running to defend it's Master, not a scream.  
  
And then he heard it. A cry of help in desperation, the cry of a young girl. He plunged into the direction of the voice, careless of the debris falling around him, willing to crush his head. The rumble of the castle falling and groaning in agony caught him off balance as the floor split in two.  
  
"Hang on, Ray!"  
  
He staggered to catch his balance but managed to get back on his feet in no time. The man ran down some hallway in what he thought he heard Ray's voice and barged into a door. A what he found was a sight for soar eyes. He never thought he would be so relieved as to see Araydia completely unharmed and safe, but unfortunately, guarded fiercely by a Mutant willing to seek revenge on it's Mistress and in the way of him getting Araydia. He didn't have the time to fight Aurelio.  
  
The symbiot shouted through the rumbling cry of the castle, "You kill one, and the other two will show up like vultures to a carcass!"  
  
D knew the demon was right. He had no time to fight the kill of the Mutants or to retrieve his weapons.  
  
'Too damn bad, that was a great sword…' D thought to himself quickly before Araydia made a bolt him, being unchained, but the female Mutant stopped her.  
  
"You killed the Mistress, this girl deserves to be killed!"  
  
"Look out!" D shouted, but it was too late. The chandelier in the middle of the ceiling was too heavy to hang and it fell, drawing some of the ceiling top down with it, and fortunately, broke the skull of Aurelio in half. The contents almost splattered but were still somewhat attached. It was a disgusting sight, but the top that had crushed Aurelio had trapped Araydia by the hem of her gown.  
  
"Pull, Ray!"  
  
"I can't…it's got my leg…" came her gentle voice. It was like knifes stabbing him, that voice didn't sound like a voice in distress, it sounded like the voice of someone who had given up.  
  
"Ray, you've got to try…" D pleaded. "If you can't save yourself, no one can…"  
  
His eyes were so pleading. Pleading; live. With everything falling around her, adrenaline kicked in. The boulder-like piece was heavy, but not as big as she thought. And by her own will, and the precious essence that flowed through a human to save its mortal life, she was able to pry her leg from the fallen piece and scrambled up. Though her dress was torn and as the boulder-piece fell back down to it's sunken position, crushed Aurelio's head even more.  
  
"Don't look. Just follow my lead."  
  
"Hurry!"  
  
D rushed off in the opposite direction from when he came and the girl followed close behind. He didn't know how long until the other Mutants would appear, but he hoped they were already dead. Ray was allowing quite some distance to pull between them. He was rather good at dodging falling boulders and such, she was having a hard time.  
  
He rushed back and picked her up in time and slung her over his shoulder. D had go with his gut feeling to find an exit from the castle, and luckily, he managed to find one. No Mutants in sight.  
  
  
  
_____________________________________________  
  
  
  
In a well-sized cottage on the edge of a forest D sat overlooking a window as the soon fell behind the mountains in the distance. Horses grazed the inside pastures of acres of meadow and Araydia's niece, Lina, was running along the pathway up the house, through the shadows of the blowing trees. Yes, Araydia had been delivered safely to her family, and even though they had only last saw her when she was a baby, her Aunt and Uncle loved her as if she were their own child. And already, Ray and Lina were behaving like sisters. Which included Lina finding Ray's diary and running around screaming "D! MY UNDYING LOVE FOR YOU—" "GIVE IT BACK!"  
  
The Hunter couldn't help but feel that feeling inside he couldn't explain when everything was over. The battle was won, and the innocent were, once again, happy. He had stayed there for a few days until his wounds had healed and he could regain his strength with rest. D knew by morning, he must be gone. He told Ray he would stay another day, even though it was a fib, it was for the best. Good-byes were not D's best subjects, and he didn't believe in saying good-bye when truly, you might see those departed friends again.  
  
Whatever it was, he managed to get through a night with sleep and by morning, when Araydia hurried into his room right before the sun had came up, she found him gone, with everything still neatly in its place as it was before.  
  
"No…"  
  
"Ray!? What are you doing up so—"  
  
Araydia ran past Lina and in her nightgown as fast as she could to find D far down the road at a light trot.  
  
"Wait!! Oh please, wait for me! If you don't stop right now D, I'll make sure that freak on your hand never shuts up!"  
  
And she finally caught up to him. Completely out of breath and panting, he stepped down from his robotic horse to give her a polite hug when she threw herself on him, supporting herself by her arms around his neck and gave him a full kiss on the lips. His eyes widened in surprised, but D was D. True to his code, he wouldn't allow himself to kiss her back, but he enjoyed it none the less.  
  
"I wish you didn't have to leave D, I love you, take me with you!"  
  
"You know I can't do that."  
  
"Yes you can, I can keep your hand company!"  
  
D gave her a light smile, truly award-winning coming from a person like him.  
  
"I'll never forget you, Araydia…"  
  
And he never did. Even years after he learned she had been killed during yet another great war that broke out between the massive countries for possessions between governments and world leaders, he never forgot her. He will always continue his quest to wipe the Vampire Race from the Earth. But you never know, maybe one day, he will come trotting through your small town… 


End file.
